The Italian has climbed 9a+ on a rope, but his hardest boulder so far was 8B. Now he has topped out Pietro Vidi's roof problem in Trentino, three weeks after Yannick Flohé flashed it.

Flow State crosses a steep granite roof in Val Daone. Pietro Vidi made the first ascent on 17 April 2024. His line takes the whole hard section of Grizzly straight into the stand start of Flow, 18 moves in all, with the crux right at the end where the feet come off. Vidi proposed 8C+. Adam Ondra made the second ascent that August and felt 8C+ was fair for shorter climbers. Being taller, he could keep his right foot on for the last move. The consensus today is 8C. Climbing History lists ten repeats before Yannick Flohé flashed it at the start of October.

Now Davide Picco has joined the list, as Vertical-Life reported on 21 October. The climber from Schio near Vicenza spends nearly all his time on routes. He has two 9a+ ticks at Massone above Arco, Pure Dreaming Plus in 2020 and Stefano Ghisolfi's Ultimatum in 2022, but until now his hardest boulder was 8B. "Spending nearly all my time climbing on lead routes, achieving this grade on a boulder is a dream come true," he said.

He only started projecting Flow State once he had done Grizzly and Flow on their own, and putting the two together took a lot more effort. The finish was the real sticking point. "I lost count of the times I fell with the very last hold," he admitted. That is why he rates Flohé's flash so highly. In his view it was less about technique than about the strength endurance it takes to stick that final move.

Picco has long fitted hard climbing around a full-time job. Back in 2020 he told PlanetMountain he worked as a welder during the week. Val Daone, meanwhile, keeps drawing strong boulderers. Ondra climbed L'Oppio dei Climbers (8B+) on the same day as Flow State in 2024, and this autumn Jana Švecová ticked it too.

Sources: 8a.nu, Gripped, Up-Climbing, PlanetMountain, Climbing History

Photo: Lago di Malga Bissina, Val di Daone, CTHOE, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons