Angelika Rainer’s Historic D15 Climb in Italy

Angelika Rainer has become the first woman to climb the drytool grade of D15 with her ascent of A Line Across the Sky in the Italian Dolomites.

The big roof climb follows a line of pockets and edges at the big cave above Malga Ciapela called Tomorrow’s World.

Oh yes! 'A line above the sky', D15 went down today!!! Can't tell how happy I am ?? When I tried the route for the first time 2 years ago, some of the single moves seemed very hard, really on my limit. Today, all 40 meters of overhanging climbing went smoothly!!! Thanks so much @tom.ballard for creating such a fun project close to home and thanks @marco_serva for coming to belay me, when my feeling said me that it could be the right day ??. ? by Michael Maili. . . . #drytooling #iceclimbing #iceaxes #climbing #climbing_photos_of_instagram #climbinglife #visionofemotion #kikuapples #angelikarainer @berghausofficial @lasportivagram @grivel @visionofemotion

A post shared by Angelika Rainer (@angelika_rainer) on Nov 22, 2017 at 10:50am PST

The first ascent was in 2016 by Tom Ballard and has been repeated by Gaetan Raymond, Dariusz Sokołowski and Jeff Mercier (who is currently in Canada climbing).

D15 is the hardest confirmed grade in drytooling. Canadian Gord McArthur recently climbed Storm Giant in B.C. and proposed the grade of D16.

In a story for Planetmountain.com, Rainer said, “I decided to try the route as it had been done originally, without a hold that was created only after Tom Ballard’s first ascent and Gaetan Raymond’s first repeat. This hold makes one of the cruxes a lot easier, and having had the honour of trying the route with Tom and Gaetan, and helping Gaetan on his ascent, I wanted to repeat the original version.

“Unfortunately in dry tooling these things happen, holds improve due to the crampons or ice axes and routes consequently become easier. Sometimes the opposite happens and holds break or become smaller, making the routes harder as time passes. One needs to bear this in mind when drytooling.” Read the full article here.

Below is a video of clips and images from Mercier’s visit to Tomorrow’s World.