Since it’s obvious I’m a bit unhinged (I’m working a lot and climbing very little), I need an old-school psychiatric treatment—the kind that really leaves a mark: electroshock! I’ve been talking about it with Lorenzino for a while, and his passage through Lombardy is the perfect opportunity and must be seized on the fly. Unusual traffic on my now routine “Tonale–Aprica” route makes me arrive quite late compared to Lorenzino, but just in time to share the approach with Roberto and Giacomo. I pack my bag in a hurry and manage to leave behind my harness, chalk (which I always carry around but never use), and my nut hammer (also always carried, also never used); I start suspecting I’ve forgotten something when we reach the Allievi plateau, but by then it’s too late. I play the joker and ask Armando if he has a spare harness. Given the objective, he lends me his personal one. The peak is under siege: three ropes teams on Electroshock! Ahead of us are Christophe Dumarest with a client (an incredible client, who led the 8a pitch with three rests and otherwise I never once saw him hanging), then us four. Even the first pitch, with cold hands and feet, makes it clear what awaits us, and the following ones don’t disappoint those expectations. Since it took several days to open the first six pitches and only one day to finish the route, we assume that after the sixth pitch we’ll be running out of there—but that’s not the case. Fatigue builds, mandatory moves are everywhere, and the protection doesn’t really allow much distraction… In any case, one minute before 4 p.m. we top out, in a clear “état de choc” (and that part will probably come later too).