Tra sogno e realtà, new multipitch added to Monte Pellegrino in Sicily by Lukáš Trojovský & Dan Bronec

In February of this year, a friend and I climbed a beautiful route on Monte Pellegrino, Ombra Silenziosa established by Roby Manfrè in 1993 and for many years considered the hardest multipitch in Sicily. From that moment on, I felt a deep longing to return to this wild, beautiful wall and attempt a first ascent of my own.

I envisioned a line in my head, dreaming about it back home. In May, everything aligned: we had some days off, my habitual climbing partner Dan was free, and the weather forecast looked great. It seemed like nothing stood in the way of making the dream come true, and so we set off from the Czech Republic to Palermo.

On the 21st of May I stood beneath the north face of Monte Pellegrino again, and at 8:00 AM we started up our chosen line. However, everything was different from what I had pictured. The rock was damp and dirty, and what was supposed to be beautiful crumbled right under my hands. After fifty meters of fighting for every hold, we gave up and retreated back to the ground.

Sad and demoralised, I felt like throwing all our gear into the sea and heading home. But I still had one more option in mind: a smooth pillar on the left side of the wall, with an unclear line and unknown difficulty.

At 2:30 PM, we returned to the wall, and this time we were finally rewarded. The rock was beautiful; the holds and good protection guided me upward to a smooth slab where I placed two bolts. Shortly after, I was sitting at the belay. Continuing in the same spirit, we pushed higher up to a good ledge below an overhang. The climbing was simply amazing, and the upcoming terrain looked tempting, but evening was fast approaching, so we abseiled back down.

The next day, we arrived at the base late, and we didn't get back to the second belay until noon. Motivated by the beauty of the first two pitches, I pushed on through the overhang. The climbing didn't go as smoothly as I'd like, and everything took a long time. We managed to add two more pleasant pitches and reached an overhanging zone, where we lost more precious time trying to find the ideal line. Eventually, I found the way through: the climbing became enjoyable again, and the holds appeared as if someone had placed them there just for me. I pulled through the overhang and set up the fifth belay. However, dusk was slowly falling, and we had to retreat again. Dan was fed up with spending so much time hanging at the belay, so I promised him that the next day we would climb somewhere else of his choice. We packed up all our gear and abseiled back to the ground. Once our feet touched the ground, Dan's motivation returned, and he was ready to support me again.

On the third day, we quickly pushed back up to the fourth belay, where I needed to haul the backpack with our gear, food, and water. However, it got stuck under the overhang, and after a slight tug, the haul strap snapped, and the pack vanished into the abyss. I belayed a shaken Dan up to me – the pack had flown past just inches away from him, so it was no surprise that he wanted to abseil back down. I convinced him that we could keep going. I climbed back up to our highpoint at the fifth belay. Soon we were both there, with the last 30 meters over several overhangs separating us from the summit. Having dropped the power drill and bolts, I headed up to find the easiest way. The climbing was brilliant, and I found decent trad placements. Before long, we reached the summit and soaked in the sweet taste of victory on our Tra sogno e realtà, between dream and reality.

– Lukáš Trojovský, Děčín, Czech Republic