EXCALIBUR | The North Face

Two years of projecting in twenty-eight minutes, and the compression is the film's strength. Stefano Ghisolfi works Excalibur, a short, steep route in Drena near Arco on a wall overhanging around 40 degrees, and makes the first ascent on February 5, 2023, proposing 9b+. Cristian Dorigatti and Morris Fontanari bolted it and invited him to try in early 2021.

This is for people who follow the top grades and want to see how a 9b+ is assembled: rehearsing sequences, working individual moves on sharp micro edges and pockets, a technical heel hook low down, and finally a redpoint. Skip it if you want the wider cast. Adam Ondra, Will Bosi and Jakob Schubert all sampled the moves and helped refine the beta, and the film gives that collaboration less than it deserves.

What works is the focus on hand positions. The holds are small enough that Ondra stepped back over injury concerns, and the film shows why. What it gets wrong is that the redpoint arrives with less weight than sixty days on Bibliographie did in the Megos film, because the failures are summarized rather than shown.

Rotpunkt: Bibliographie is the comparison: seventeen minutes, a 9b+ at Céüse, and a send that lands because you watched exactly what it cost. Excalibur is a good record of a harder route in Italy. Bibliographie is the better film.