Siblings Giulia and Mattia Bernardini have climbed Digital Crack 5.13b, the famous 50-metre route on the Grand Gendarme of the Ar\u00eate des Cosmiques, near the Aiguille du Midi, at an altitude of approximately 3,800 metres. First freed in 1990 by French climbers, Thierry Renault and Alain Ghersen, Digital Crack has become one of the most iconic and sought-after high-altitude sport climbs in the Alps. It is a striking wall of orange granite surrounded by glaciers and some of the most spectacular peaks of the Mont Blanc massif. But behind this ascent there is, above all, a very personal story.<\/p>\n
Giulia Bernardini, born in 2005, is the 2025 Italian U21 Lead Champion. She started climbing as a child together with her brother Mattia, and Digital Crack had already become one of her dreams at a very young age. On the wall of her bedroom she had a poster of Federica Mingolla climbing Digital Crack.<\/p>\n
Mingolla climbed the route on the 1st of July 2015, at the age of 21, completing what was at the time one of the most significant Italian female ascents at this level of difficulty and altitude.<\/p>\n
Eleven years later, Giulia found herself climbing the very same wall she had looked at as a child in that photograph hanging in her bedroom. According to the information currently available, Giulia\u2019s ascent should also represent the second known ascent of Digital Crack by an Italian woman.<\/p>\n
Alongside her was her older brother, Mattia Bernardini, 23, with whom she has shared a passion for climbing through out her young life. Over the years their paths have developed in different directions: Giulia towards competitions and high-level sport climbing, while Mattia has increasingly focused on mountains and alpinism. Mattia is now a member of the Italian Guardia di Finanza Alpine Rescue service.<\/p>\n
Mattia accompanied and supported his sister in fulfilling a dream he had known about since they were children. But once at 3,800 metres, standing beneath Digital Crack himself, he could hardly let the opportunity pass: he climbed the 8a as well, turning Giulia\u2019s personal project into an ascent shared by the two siblings.<\/p>\n
They were also joined during their days at altitude by a small group of close friends with whom they have shared climbing and mountain experiences for many years.<\/p>\n
Digital Crack History<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Siblings Giulia and Mattia Bernardini have climbed Digital Crack 5.13b, the famous 50-metre route on the Grand Gendarme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,1202],"class_list":["post-116540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117111910954685149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}