Pietro Vidi casts his spell on Yosemite's Magic Line

Pietro Vidi has continued his terrific run of form in Yosemite and after sending the Pre-Muir wall on El Capitan and the single pitch Meltdown (5.14c/8c+) at Cascade Creek, he has now successfully repeated the cutting-edge trad climb Magic Line (5.14c/8c+).

First climbed in 1996 by Yosemite valley legend Ron Kauk with pre-placed gear and then led ground-up for the first time in 2018 by his son Lonnie Kauk, this thin finger crack has still seen only a handful of repeats. These include Hazel Findlay (2019), Carlo Traversi (2021), Connor Herson (2024), Barbara Zangerl (2024) and Jacopo Larcher (2024).

After his succesful ascent, the 22-year old Italian commented: “After a last minute change of plans and not starting my push on The Nose, the obvious goal was Magic Line. I have always been attracted by the beauty and aesthetics of the line, but at the same time intimidated knowing it wouldn’t suit me as well as Meltdown. The thought of climbing both routes in the same season got me even more psyched to try it!

I found the route actually suited me really well - with a hard intro boulder, followed by some very delicate laybacking on really bad smears and little edges and then a final no-hands rest before the last boulder.

On the first session on a toprope I could quickly link the two cruxes, but it took me 3 further sessions to optimise my beta for the long middle section and figure out the most efficient gear placements and all the little details.

I eventually toproped the route placing all the gear on my fourth session and felt really confident to send even with the limited time I had left on the trip.

On my first day of lead attempts I made it to the last, (easier) crux on both tries, but my foot slipped on one of the very last moves, seeing me take a couple of big whippers.

I managed to send the route on my first try of the next day, finding myself flowing through the cruxes without even thinking and “magically” found myself at the chains!

For sure one of the best, most aesthetic and most technical lines I’ve ever climbed! Really happy to have climbed both this and Meltdown in the same trip, but I’ll definitely have my focus back on the bigger walls for my next trip to the Valley!”