Jacopo Larcher has made the fourth ascent of the 'post-break' Parthian Shot (E10 6c), at Burbage South Edge in the Peak District. 

First climbed by John Dunne in 1989, first repeated by Seb Greive in 1997 (as seen in the iconic 'Hard Grit'), and altered forever in 2011 by an unfortunate Will Stanhope, who fell from the crux, ripped the 'shipwreck of a flake', and found himself 'on the ground, spitting blood, struggling to breathe'.

And so Parthian Shot E9 - which had become familiar with big falls, so much so that Kevin Jorgeson took a number of them on his way to a first ground-up ascent in 2008 - became an altogether different proposition.

It was left unclimbed for two years until 2013, when Ben Bransby took it on in and made the first ascent of the new Parthian Shot, E10 6c.

Since then, only three people have climbed it. Neil Mawson in 2014, Siebe Vanhee in 2021, and, earlier this month, visiting climber Jacopo Larcher.

We got in touch with Jacopo to find out how it all came about.

Congratulations on climbing Parthian Shot! How did you first come across the route, and what did you think of it at the time?

Thanks! Well, Parthian Shot is such an iconic route… I don't even remember when I first heard about it! It's simply one of those lines you really want to climb as a trad climber!

You've climbed a lot of hard trad routes, up to E11! A lot of the conversation around Parthian Shot tends to be about the gear and how bad it is, or whether it would hold a fall. What was your approach with gear on the route, and - crucially - did you trust it?

Well, the gear in the infamous flake is a tricky one to judge. I would trust it way more on granite ;-)

The gear itself, even if small, seems quite ok, but the flake (or what's left of it…) sounds a bit hollow. I don't think it'll break off again, but I'm not sure if the gear would hold a fall from the top, which would require a harder catch. I felt quite safe on the crux, but less on the foot swap at the top, where in my head I switched into 'solo' mode. 

I opted for 'wasting' a bit more energy, and placed two sliders and two small wires, but felt safer on the upper part.

As one hold broke in the first part, I also placed (on lead) one extra cam in the horizontal break of the traverse, which would make a fall nicer, and also helps to keep the gear in the flake in place.

In general, the rock around the flake doesn't seem to be very solid. I wouldn't be surprised if some more holds would break off...

(Jacopo placed all gear on lead, and didn't downclimb after placing gear).

You mentioned that another hold on the route has broken off, and that it made the start a bit more powerful - where on the route was the hold, and how did this affect the climbing?

Yes exactly. When I first tried the route I didn't know about the new broken hold… and I was actually quite surprised by the powerful intro move. When in the evening Sam (Pratt) told me about it, I felt a little relieved!

The missing hold is the sidepull you reached from the first two crimps, right after leaving the big starting crack. I hadn't tried the route before, so it's impossible for me to tell how this has influenced the difficulty of the sequence… but now you definitely have to to do a move more on crimps, followed by a big move to a sloper. The shorter you are, the harder it gets.

What else did you get up to on your UK trip? Any other standout routes that you did?

Honestly the plan for the trip was to just visit different spots and sample some moderate classics, as we were shooting for a film project about trad climbing. We didn't have a lot of time and we wanted to see as much as possible, so I didn't plan to try anything hard.

We started our trip in the Lake District, where we wanted to check out the higher crags and some historical routes, but unfortunately the rain changed our plans and we got to climb just a bit in some sheltered crags (mostly at Reecastle Crag and Shepherd’s Crag).

We then spontaneously decided to spend a few days around Sheffield, as I had never been to the Peak District before. We thought that it would be way too warm to climb there, but actually the strong wind provided some nice conditions! We hoped to also get the chance to check out the climbing in North Wales, but in the end we stayed around Sheffield as the weather forecast looked better there.

I didn't try any other hard routes, but got to sample some classics. I definitely would like to go back to the Peak District in the right season for trying some of the iconic hard lines - they look so good!

Speaking of iconic hard lines, which routes in the UK are you most excited to come back and try?

Hard question! There are so many routes I would love to try! Meshuga (E9 6c), Appointment with Death (E9 6c), The Groove (E9 7b), GreatNess Wall (E10 7a), Lexicon (E11 7a), Gaia (E8 6c), The End of the Affair (E8 6c), Indian Face (E9 6c), Braille Trail (E7 6c)… not to mention all the routes in Northumberland and Scotland.

There's simply too much to do! Echo Wall (E10 7a) is definitely one that I would love to see and try at least once in my life.

What's next for you?

The last year has been very busy with expeditions and filming duties. Now, I'm honestly looking forward to spending some time around home and in the Alps, and simply climbing as much as possible and getting back in shape.

In the next months, Babsi and I would like to try to free an old aid line on a big wall in Val di Mello. In the autumn, I would love to go to Annot, and also invest some time finding some new trad projects in North Italy or Switzerland!