Matteo Meucci, an Italian mountaineer living in Iceland, has challenged himself to climb 100 alpine, mixed and ice routes up Iceland’s mountains, as well as to run 100 km over the span of one year.
The Matteo’s 100 Challenge, as the creator himself has nicknamed it, started on October 1st and is set to end on October 30th 2017. It’s a birthday gift to himself, and an active effort to boost the popularity of ice climbing in Iceland.
Matteo, an experienced climber and long distance runner, points out that the real challenge won’t be physical, as he enjoys spending time with friends and the mind-freeing process of climbing, but rather about finding time for this project. One of the things he looks forward to is the opportunity to try out new routes and plan some of them himself.
“It is more fun if no one has done it,” he says. “You are the first and you don’t know how it will go. It is a little bit spicy.”
Matteo got to know climbing when he was 16 and has since developed it into one of his life’s passions. He describes his first ice climb in 1999 as “love at first sight”.
“It’s the ice itself and the way the ice forms: it is different each season, year after year,” Matteo says. “Even if you are going to do the same route, it is still different every time.”
Below you can see a video clip of his endeavors:
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