Ok, so it’s been quite a while since my last post. We spent a week in Val Daone concentrating more of my efforts on building camp fires on an evening than I did to my climbing. The area has a lot of climbing but unfortunately it didn’t look too inspiring. I found a few cool looking lines but psyche was running quite low, following on from Val Masino’s grades everything felt quite hard too! I spotted a very impressive looking line up a 30 degree wall full of crimps, it was given 8b but looked possible given that it was all my strong points; a lot of moves through tiny crimps on a wall just steep enough to make things interesting. I finally plucked up the energy to give it a good go and spent a good hour working the moves. I managed every move and just had one section left to link; so happy with my efforts for the day I decided on one more attempt to get the link and call it a day, sharp crimps had my skin in bits so a day’s rest before a go at the full send would have been perfect. Typically on that final attempt I hit a climber’s worst nightmare… I got the link but burst a fingertip. Not just a slight hole but I pulled hard enough to put the crimp straight through my tip, making a very deep hole with blood dripping down my hand. That put an end to Val Daone : ( we had planned to leave in the next few days so it wasn’t too bad but meant the 8b had slipped away when I felt so close.


Deflated from my efforts in Val Daone we headed to Switzerland, first stop Chironico. We had spent 3 days there on a previous trip but spent the time pottering on quite steady things and I was pretty excited to concentrate my efforts on some of the harder problems the area had to offer. After a day of travelling and a day or two’s rest my fingertip was healed and ready to go again, but the weather of Switzerland had other ideas. The next week we battled with 30+ degrees heat, most days being above 35 and some reaching a blistering 40 degrees. We tried climbing late on the evening but the granite holds the heat so well and the temperature didn’t drop below 20 degrees during the middle of the night; so despite my efforts to try and climb in the heat a week went by with no sends at all, just hiding in the van, strolling through supermarkets to enjoy the air conditioning, and consuming lots of ice cream. Doesn’t sound too bad looking back on it now!

Jason and Claire who we’d spent some time with in Val Masino and Val Daone had headed back to England for a friend’s wedding and would be coming back out to meet us. After several discussions through Facebook about temperature and conditions we decided to meet them in a new area to us all, Gotthardo Pass. Situated at over 2000m we were sure the temperature would be low enough to get those full days of climbing we had hoped for when we left Val Masino. Kay and I arrived two days prior to Jason and Claire so we spent two days exploring the area and basking in the sun surrounded by snow, a strange concept but making for beautiful scenery. We explored the first 3 areas in the guide and were starting to regret the long haul up the pass as the climbing didn’t look as inspiring as we’d hoped. But on the arrival of Jason and Claire we headed further along the pass to explore the next 4 areas and finally found some pretty amazing looking boulders. All of which were a fair hike up the hillside making for a good warm up with bags and pads etc!

Day 1 in the new area I sought out a line I’d spotted in the guide with an impressive photo of Fred Nicole battling up a 7c+ arête/prow with an 8a sit start named 'Trieste-Gottardo'. I warmed up on another impressive looking arête called ecstasy graded 7a, definitely a classic of the area; a thing crack line to start with a big move out right to begin the arête section which rose to a quite uncomfortable height. Armed with a few pads and a good spot in the form of Jason it went down in a matter of goes. Now warmed up and ready for a fight I headed round the boulder to try Trieste-Gottardo. After a few attempts I found myself at the big rock over towards the top, testing my pebble pulling power I soon found myself stood on top, next stop the sit start. After a couple of goes to work the sit start moves the whole thing went down surprisingly easy! The next day I went back on the evening armed with some newly bought lights to try and get the send on video in the dark. As the sun went down the lights illuminated the boulder amazingly and made for an even more impressive looking line.


Day 3, next stop was the cool looking ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, another 7c+ with an 8a sits start. After about half an hour I found myself half way up the problem, this seemed way harder the Trieste-Gottardo! However with a power spot from Kay through the first few moves I found a good sequence for the second half and it was game on! Within a few more goes the stand went down and I sat at the bottom to try the sit start. After 10 minutes of feeling around for some holds I finally managed to lift off the ground, a few goes later the full problem went down, chuffed!


Day 4, surprised with my efforts the day before sending Dark Side of the Moon I figured to keep pushing since all was going quite well! So next up was an 8a slab cleverly named ‘Scary Christmas’. I’m not too fond of slabs but this looked pretty good so I thought why not, with a big hold to start and a big rock over on top of it to get into the slab section I though it’s be over once I’d pulled through the tiny crimps and got to the slab section. Silly me, the start was definitely the easiest bit! Living up to its name I spent the next hour scaring myself silly trying to traverse the slab and struggling to trust the small foot ledges. I was on the verge of giving up when a couple of locals turned up with a few more pads and were keen to give it a go with me. With a big stretch to a poor pebble one of the guys uncovered a slightly better sequence to get the step through move and sent it. Inspired by this I stuck my shoes back on for one more go. The razor sharp crimps on the first few moves were taking their toll on my battered fingers, a combination from my efforts on Dark Side of the Moon the day before and the hour or so I’d spent trying this monstrosity. Back on it with the new sequence I did it next go, good job too as the first few moves cut through my fingers giving me another burst tip! It was definitely worth it though, an amazing line and another 8a in the bag! Onwards to Magic Woods now... A very successful week so far, let’s see if I can keep it up!


For those interested here’s the summary video from Val Masino, I didn’t manage to have it all edited by the time we left and I put up my last post, enjoy…!