Silvia Vidal: magical synchronicity

From 07/02 to 10/03/2020 and after spending 33 days alone on the wall, Silvia Vidal completed a new big wall on the west face of Cerro Chileno Grande in Patagonia, Chile.

Synchrony Magic (A3+/6a+, about 1200m) is the first route on the west face of the mountain.

“Alone, totally isolated and without any communication; no radio, no phone, no GPS, no communication device of any kind for a month and a half, in the Chileno Valley.

After fixing the first 180 meters, I spent 33 days on the wall from February 7 until March 10 opening a route I called “Sincronia Màgica.”

The details are as follows: 1180 meters elevation gain, A3+/6a+, followed by 30 minutes to reach the westernmost needle, which turned out not to be the main summit. The west wall is huge and vertical.

There are about 330 meters of vertical terrain, with a lot of vegetation that prevented me from enjoying the climbing, especially since I didn’t even know how to get through this section.

I graded it MT (Bush “Matojo” Traction) because I used crampons and an ice axe to climb the vegetation-covered vertical cracks! The protections were very few and far between. The rest of the route (the remaining 850 meters) offered slab and crack climbing.

While the offwidth cracks and chimneys were generally clean, the slabs tended to be covered with moss that proved slippery when wet.

The west face of Cerro Chileno Grande is a complex wall and the progression proved difficult, not only because of the technical difficulties of the climb, but also because of the number of rope maneuvers required to move across this varied terrain; roofs, traverses and pendulums…all to connect me to cracks and slabs.”

New Worlds Festival: a story of rebirth in the mountains

Born in 2012 from an idea of the cultural association Kosmoki and the Municipality of Valloriate, the New Worlds Festival is a unique event.

It is in fact a mountain film festival that takes place entirely in the mountains, in the MontagnaFutura Cultural District, consisting of the municipalities of Rittana, Valloriate, Roccasparvera and Moiola.

The challenge is ambitious: to create a major cultural event in a peripheral setting, capable of attracting visitors from all over Italy and breathing new life into an often forgotten mountainous area.

The festival features a selection of documentaries participating in the International Documentary Competition .

In addition to cinema, the festival also offers a rich program of events with important cultural and mountain personalities.

All with the aim of creating a dialogue between different forms of art and culture and exploring new worldviews.