Free climbing perhaps the hardest bigwall route in the South Hemisphere is the main task of the expedition Karambony 2007, which French web Kairn.com organized to Tsaranoro in Madagascar with the participation of Francois Legrand and other world-class climbers.

The huge wall of Karambony in the area of Tsaranoro is well known to CzechClimbing.com readers from last year's visit of Czech climbers Ondra Benes and Tomas Sobotka (Madagaskar). The members of the international expedition Karambony 2007 would like now to free climb the 450 m long route Tough Enough, which was opened by a German team in 2005.






The face of Karambony
photo from Kairn.com

According to the topo we got from the expedition, the difficulty of the hardest pitches should by at least 8b+.



Besides that, the members would like to explore other local climbing opportunities- especially bouldering on the island Madagascar.



A documentary film will be made about the entire expedition. The film crew is lead by Evrard Wendenbaum, who was successful recently at many film festivals with his Amazonian Vertigo about climbing via 1000 m wall of Salto Angel in Venezuela in 2006.



Besides legendary Francois Legrand, there will also be Greg Sobczak, who climbs mostly on the French island of Reunion, where he made the local first 8b, 8c, and 9a sport routes. Other climbers on the team are: Giovanni Quirici from Switzerland, who has experience from bigwalls in Norway (8a+ /A2) and from Pakistan where he climbed the more than one kilometer long granite wall in grade 8a and altitude of 6000 m.; Spanish climber Tony Arbones,  who was part of the Salto Angel team with Arnaud Petit and Stephanie Bodet (the Film Amazonian Vertigo); and Leirre Aguirre one of spains top female climbers.


Francois Legrand
archive photo from Kairn.com


Giovanni Quirici
archive photo from Kairn.com


Greg Sobczak
archive photo from Kairn.com

The expedition has its daily blog on the internet (French): www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/kairn/

Web of the main organizer: www.Kairn.com