CLIMBER
JACOPO LARCHER
BLUDNEZ, AUSTRIA
Jacopo Larcher guides his life based on the belief that the only constant is change. He says the true beauty of climbing lies in its potential for constant evolution. Jacopo is the living manifestation of this philosophy, evolving as a climber for most of his 29 years.
Raised in Bolzano, Italy, Jacopo took a climbing class at age 10 and fell in love with vertical relief. He spent the following years training and seeing direct results for the honest work he invested in the sport. He won the Italian Youth Championships and the Italian Youth Cup in Lead and Boulder for three consecutive years, and once he joined the Italian National Team, he began traveling the world to compete. But in 2011, once he won the Italian Championships of Bouldering, he boldly quit competing in search of something new. Craving original experiences, Jacopo tried many disciplines of climbing, but his love of travel, exploration and photography has shifted his career in the direction of multi-pitch and traditional climbing.
In December 2017, Jacopo and his girlfriend, Barbara Zangerl, made the first repeat of Magic Mushroom, the route up El Capitan that no one has climbed since Tommy Caldwell freed in 2012. During the summer of 2018, he and Barbara took to the Eiger in Switzerland for the first time and ticked three routes, including a four-day free ascent of Odyssee, with difficulties up to 5.13c.
Whether it’s alpinism or the biggest unclimbed faces in the world, Jacopo says he’ll always be searching for something new. He says to mature as a person and a climber, one must never fear leaving his comfort zone.
Accomplishments
- Odyssee - 8a+, 1400m (first free repeat of the hardest route on the North Face of the Eiger)
- Magic Mushroom - 5.14a, 900m (first free repeat of the second hardest route on El Capitan)
- Gondo Crack - 8c trad (one of the hardest cracks in Europe)
- La Rambla, 5.15a
- Rhapsody E11 7a (the hardest trad route in the UK, and one of the hardest in Europe)
- Lapoterapia, 8c trad