Stefano Ghisolfi has made the third ascent of Margalef test piece - The Full Journey, 9b. 

The Full Journey starts up The Journey, 9a/+, which was both bolted and climbed by Tom Bolger in 2022. Later that the year Alex Megos came along to climb its exension and in doing so complete The Full Journey. It was subsequently repeated by a similarly on form Jorge Diaz Rullo in 2023. Several years on their tick lists from the time of their ascents are still astonishing, with an abundance of both quantity and quality.

The Full Journey was one of two routes that Ghisolfi was hoping to climb throughout his time in Margalef, with the other goal being Chris Sharma's Sleeping Lion, which was initially graded 9b+ but has settled at 9b after repeats by - you guessed it - Alex Megos and Jorge Diaz Rullo (notice a pattern?).

On Instagram, Ghisolfi had this to say:

"The Full Journey went down first! Actually, I was struggling a bit on the first part of the route (The Journey, 9a+) and I fell few times before the anchor. Yesterday I could finally clip the first anchor and decided to try to keep going for The Full Journey (9b), and surprisingly managed to climb it on the same go! First 9b of the year is done, let's go for the next one 💤🦁"

This is the hardest route Stefano has climbed since he made the first ascent of Excalibur, 9b+; however, he has invested significant time and effort into repeating Adam Ondra's 9c - Silence. Hopefully he'll be back out to Flatanger again this summer, as it would be great to see him complete his multi-year project.