Exodia

Grade: Proposed 9A+ (V18)
Style: Boulder
Where: Rifugio Barbara, Val Pellice, Piedmont, Italy
First ascent: Elias Iagnemma, 11 November 2025

Exodia is a serpentinite roof under the Mr. Dodo boulder, by the road up to Rifugio Barbara in Italy’s Val Pellice. Elias Iagnemma finished it in November 2025 and proposed 9A+, the world’s first. Adam Ondra made the second ascent and suggests 9A. It has about 25 hand moves in 7 to 8 m of climbing, on smooth rock with almost no friction.

History

The line was an old project of Christian Core’s, listed in a 2014 guide as a sit-start project beside his Mr. Dodo (8B). Iagnemma started on it on 11 June 2021 and made the first ascent on 11 November 2025, his 211th session. His own date is the 11th, and some reports say the 10th.

Ondra climbed it on 16 October 2026, in four days over two trips. He used Iagnemma’s sequence and crimped some holds rather than pinching them.

The climb

Section	Grade
Part 1, from the sit start	8B+
The bat rest	No hands, upside down
Part 2	8C+ (Ondra says about 8C), four moves at its core
Mr. Dodo’s exit	The last moves of an 8B

Elias Iagnemma’s beta

The sit start. A nasty pinch for the left hand and a three-finger hold for the right, with the wrist bent right back.
Part 1. A left kneebar, where the moves between the knees are the hard part, then an undercling jug and a flat crimp. The feet come up onto the start pinch, then come off as the left hand goes far up to a very flat pinch.
The bat rest. The second kneebar leads to a wide jug and a double toe hook. Then the hands let go and the climber hangs head down from both knees. Iagnemma stayed 43 seconds on the send, and says that 40 is the most before it starts to cost more than it gives.
Part 2. Back on the jug, still upside down, then sitting up to the flat pinch and the kneebar. A very hard move leads off a slippery flat hold to a 1.5 cm edge under the roof.
The jump. From a toe hook, a jump far left to a square pinch. Iagnemma cuts loose on it, while Ondra, who is taller, reaches it from the toe hook.
The double heel. A blind left heel on a nub just over a centimetre deep, the left hand to an undercling pinch, then the right heel on a horn and the match. Iagnemma calls this the real crux, and wore out 20 to 25 left shoes on it.
The last compression. Back to the square pinch, then the left hand to an undercling jug. A heel popped on this easy ground three weeks before the send, and he fell.
The exit. Mr. Dodo’s last moves lead over the lip to a mantle, about two minutes from the ground.

Open it in the app

Open it in the web app with the button below, or download the file and import it into Broken Crimp. Either way, step through the beta move by move and slow it down.

Open it in the web app Download the .beta file

Sources

An unofficial reconstruction, put together from the public sources above. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the climbers or sources named, and it is no substitute for your own judgement on the rock. See the Terms of Use.