Benefield: Santa Rosa man teams up for historic climb in Switzerland

What’s in the water at Maria Carrillo High?

Two Pumas in nine months have climbed to the top of the rock climbing world with first-ever ascents of iconic routes. First it was Maria Carrillo graduate Kevin Jorgeson, 30, who made international news in January when he and climbing partner Tommy Caldwell free climbed El Capitan’s Dawn Wall in Yosemite. Now it’s 2006 graduate Carlo Traversi, 27, who is making news for his climbing exploits.

Traversi and climbing partner Sasha DiGiulian topped out on the Magic Mushroom route on the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland on Aug. 29. DiGiulian, a fourth-year student at Columbia University, was the first woman ever to free climb the route and the pair are believed to be the first Americans to free climb it. A free climb means they used ropes for protection from falls, not for aid in ascending.

The summit is 13,000 feet and the route the pair took was more than 2,000 feet - straight up. Oh, and there was snow and ice. And falling rocks.

Traversi took a rock to the face when he looked up at an inopportune moment.

“It was kind of a battlefield up there for sure,” he said. “It’s risky. You can’t, like, run for cover. You kind of duck and hope.”

But it wasn’t hope that got him to the top. It was grit and years of climbing experience.

“It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve done,” Traversi said.

That’s saying something.

Traversi has been climbing since he was 14 when he first visited Vertex climbing center in Santa Rosa.

“I was always into running and soccer and liked the athletic aspects to those sports,” he said. But he was also drawn to things like skateboarding and BMX riding.

“Climbing felt like a combination of the two to me,” he said. “It was a little more extreme.”

Traversi is now clearly in his element when things are extreme.

After graduating from Maria Carrillo, Traversi enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He left school after one year to pursue climbing full time. He makes a home in Boulder but spends much of the year traveling and climbing as a sponsored athlete.

A two-time national champion in sport climbing and a 10-year member of the U.S. bouldering team, Traversi had never taken on the likes of the Eiger, a mountain whose face is affectionately called “Murder Wall” by those who know it best. More than 60 climbers have died while attempting the north face, according to Outside magazine.

“Eiger has a huge history of being a really dangerous wall to be on,” Traversi said.

That was part of the allure, he said.

“Not because I wanted to die, but because something that is dangerous and something that people have a lot of respect for is a cool thing to challenge yourself with,” he said.

The climb certainly presented challenges to the pair.

Originally, the duo planned to climb the Paciencia route. Tougher and longer, the Paciencia proved unclimbable not because of the length or technical difficulty but because of the temperature. An unusually warm summer melted ice deep within the face of the mountain, making the route wet no matter the day-time temperature.

Traversi likened it to climbing in a waterfall.

“We spent three weeks waiting for dry conditions on it,” he said. They never came.

“I made the call to move to a different route that wasn’t quite as hard,” he said.

That route was the Magic Mushroom, which finishes on an iconic pillar of rock sometimes used as a launch point for base jumping.

First climbed in 2007, the route is 20 pitches long. A pitch is a section of the climb that can be protected by one rope length.

Magic Mushroom presented an added element of challenge in that while the first half is difficult, the second half is very difficult.

“About 300 feet from the top … we both definitely had a moment where we were like ‘Oh man, I’m not sure we can do this,’?” he recalled. “I was in a position on that particular section where I felt confident about it even though I was (struggling). I was like ‘I can do this, I can climb this. You can do this, you can climb this. When we get through this you are done.’?”

But Traversi, who makes his living as a sponsored climber and climbing filmmaker, is far from done.

He wants to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite next.

“I definitely have goals,” he said. “Just keep pushing my strength in the world of climbing. It’s always been my goal to win a national bouldering championship.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.