Massi di Gjildo / Pioverno

The boulder (together with its smaller twin and a few satellite boulders in the surrounding area) is made out of amazing, compact, polished limestone that makes for an intricate climbing style on slopey footholds. The uphill side offers some reasonably sized lines on the best rock, the backside serve as the downclimb, while the other 3 sides give increasingly tall and bold highball lines (the north side is the tallest but the rock quality isn't great, it's more like a sport climb, but the south side offers mabye the best winter climbing spot in the region, no joke, even if it has only a couple of lines).

The woods🌳🌳around the boulder are a really pretty and peaceful place to be in, I would even recommend them for a picnic 😆 but in summer they are snake🐍territory.

The boulder has been on the radar of various locals for quite a while, at first they wanted to make it a sport climbing venue like the "masso bonsai" but upon closer inspection the small size (7m at most) and limited ammount of possible routes demotivated the potential developers. In 2023 Stefano "Verza" Veritti told me about this boulder and how it might make for a good highball (I had seen it from the train but I never bothered checking it out). So with a borrowed drill, rope ecc. I spent my christmas break cleaning the landings from trees and brambles and put a few bolts on top to check the lines out.
It turned out to be a really good, if mabye not for the masses, bouldering venue with some of the proudest lines in the region.