Madagascar

Madagascar Tsaranoro Atsimo, Avanà. Between October 1 and 7 Italians Paolo Stoppini, Paolo Tombini, Alberto Zucchetti, and I climbed a new route on the east pillar o f Tsaranoro Atsim o. We christened o u t route Avanà, which in the local language means rainbow. We climbed 10 pitches w ith difficulties up to 7a+ (5.12a) covering som e 500m o f vertical gain. We en countered perfect granite along steep blank slabs that we protected by placing a total o f 104 bolts— 84 for protection and 20 for belays. We clim bed g ro u n d -u p placing bolts using a pow er drill and d rilling from hooks o r stances. It took us four days to com plete o u r climb, and it was Stoppini an d Z uchetti who did m ost o f the leading. We had m any problem s w ith the batteries o f o u r pow er drill, one o f which exploded at one point. It was very difficult to re-charge them , so on o u r last day, w ith just one pitch to go, we were forced to carry a 10-pound gas-powered drill up the route. Avanà is a fairly serious route, considering that the bolts are quite distant from each other and there is no natural protection to be found. Sandro B orini, Italy (translated by Rolando Garibotti)