Cornalba: Marta Carminati sends "Svalutation" 8a
I'm exploding with happiness. I have no words to describe what I feel because I haven't really realized yet. A sense of lightness, of freedom, is satisfying my senses. Months of effort, tenacity, discouragement, reciprocated by perfect hours.
Svalutation is a second Cornalba pitch freed by B. Dallona in winter '92 and graded 8a. For the first repetition you have to wait thirty years: last December my climbing partner Edoardo Rovetta manages to put all the pieces of the puzzle together after a short but intense courtship.
For the first four days of attempts, I continue to open my right index finger, but one movement at a time I manage to unlock all the sequences.
Devaluation is a concentration roll: you can't get distracted, you can't think about failure, you can't think about success. You just have to climb, you just have to breathe, you have to feel the world with the last few millimeters of your body's extremities. And in this ascetic concentration I hardly know how to stay.
It was a long, often frustrating process, but I have to admit that every time I tried it I got better... or at least until I realized I was ready, every spin could be a good one. One day I was so tense that I had a knot in my stomach that made me cry, even before arriving at the starting belay. "Climbing is what makes me absolutely freer, can it make me stay like this?" I told myself.
With this awareness, the next time I came back calm, serene and happy to get involved.
"I've never been so free as right now" I said to the rest after passing the crux. I knew the last sequence could easily push me away, but I didn't care. That was my place, I was exactly where I needed to be: in the heart of Cornalba, dreaming big surrounded by the people I love.
That day, February 1, 2023, I closed Devaluation because I believed in myself, I stopped devaluing myself. Thanks Camos for the umpteenth pearl and for all the teachings that, without ever having known you, you gave me.
A video made with @rupe_clothing will be out soon . Stay tuned! ☀️
Martha Carminati
