The Italian sent Alone in the Gorges du Loup on 15 October, her third 9a. She then stayed in the same gorge and also ticked Abyss (8c+), a route she used to walk past on her way back to the car.

Alone is in the L'Arche sector of the Gorges du Loup, near Grasse in the south of France. Pierre Le Cerf made the first ascent in June 2021. Climbing History records a repeat by Benjamin Guigonnet in 2023, and 8a.nu reported Lorenzo Bogliacino's ascent in 2025. As Ghisolfi explained to 8a.nu, the route links several pitches into about 90 moves. She flashed the 8a and then did the 8b and the 8b+. Once July was over she ticked the 8c, and after that it all came down to the final section.

The year did not start well. The 30-year-old from Turin was out of shape early in 2026 and missed the World Cup selection. As 8a.nu notes, it is her first season without World Cups since her debut in 2012. So she turned to rock. In June she spent a week at L'Arche, where her boyfriend Alessio Voghera pushed her to try the pitches. July meant a month at the federal training centre in Arco, and in August the couple spent two weeks in Rodellar, where both of them sent Così fan tutte (8c+). Then came weekends of driving between Turin and the gorge, and in October she took five days off to finish the job.

Abyss is in the same gorge, right on the walk back from L'Arche to the car. While she was working on Alone she gave it about three exploratory burns, one a day. After clipping the chains on Alone she focused fully on Abyss and sent it in October, in about ten total attempts. "I love pinches, so it's totally my style," she told 8a.nu.

Her first 9a was TCT at Gravere in the Val di Susa in 2022, a route her brother Stefano Ghisolfi freed in 2014. That made her the second Italian woman to climb 9a after Laura Rogora. Last year she added Trip tik tonik, also in the Gorges du Loup. Fellow Italian Camilla Moroni opened her own 9a account with Dreamcatcher, and in the Verdon Nolwen Berthier made the second ascent of Hématome Crochu.

Sources: 8a.nu, 8a.nu (Gorges du Loup), Climbing History, PlanetMountain, Instagram (Claudia Ghisolfi)

Cover: view towards the Gorges du Loup from Camp Romain. This is not a photo from the ascent. Photo: DimiTalen, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.