Pietro Vidi Climbs Yosemite’s Magic Line 5.14c Trad
The send is one of many noteworthy climbs by Vidi this year in the Valley
Italian climber Pietro Vidi has successfully repeated one of Yosemite’s most famous and difficult trad climbs with Magic Line 5.14c.
First climbed by Ron Kauk in 1996, it was repeated by his son Lonnie Kauk in 2016, by Hazel Findlay in 2019, and by Carlo Traversi in 2021. Then in fall 2024, it was climbed by Connor Herson, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher. More on Magic Line here.
Vidi has had an impressive year in Yosemite. In the spring, he climbed his first El Cap route with the second free ascent of the 19-pitch 5.13c Lurking Fear, which was first freed by Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden 25 years earlier. And this fall, he climbed PreMuir Wall (5.13+, 30+ pitches), and Meltdown 5.14c trad.
In an email, Vidi wrote: I found the route actually suited me really well – with a hard intro boulder, followed by some very delicate laybacking on really bad smears and little edges and then a final no-hands rest before the last boulder.
On the first session on a Top-Rope I could quickly link the two cruxes, but it took me three further sessions to optimise my beta for the long middle section and figure out the most efficient gear placements and all the little details.
I eventually top-roped the route placing all the gear on my fourth session and felt really confident to send even with thr limited time I had left on the trip. On my first day of lead attempts I made it to the last, (easier) crux on both tries, but my foot slipped on one of the very last moves, seeing me take a couple of big whippers.
I managed to send the route on my first try the next day, finding myself flowing through the cruxes without even thinking and “magically” found myself at the chains. For sure one of the best, most aesthetic and most technical lines I’ve ever climbed. Really happy to have climbed both this and Meltdown in the same trip, but I’ll definitely have my focus back on the bigger walls for my next trip to the Valley.
