Climbing on the Karst – Buzetski Kanjon

The Karst escarpment that hosts so much quality climbing in this corner of the Adriatic runs for around 100km from Monfalcone in Italy, south east through Trieste, nips across Slovenia, through Osp and then heads into Croatia, finally petering out south of Buzet. The funky “Climbing on the Karst Edge” guidebook, which covers the whole lot, has got to be a candidate for the most amusing guidebook ever published. It describes the Trieste, Osp and Buzet areas as being the past, present and future of climbing on Karst, as they were each developed in waves around 50 years apart, starting with Comici in the 1920s, and heading south east.

We explored the Croatian crags in 2015 when a number of them were very much still in development.

Kompanj and into Croatia

We were suitably impressed enough to want to return, and it’s reassuring to note my comments then that the grades seemed a letter tougher than much of France and Spain – fast forward 7 years and they’re feeling a couple of letters tougher! The inevitable onset of the dreaded polish might have something to do with that, and the fact that it’s absolutely boiling isn’t helping, but I’ve also got to admit that I’m completely out of shape – a summer spent trad climbing and a big walling trip to Utah have done nothing for my sport fitness!

Back to the excuses; did I mention it was hot? I know it’s a bit of a “High Class problem” but the thing about a 100km-long wall, made of gleaming white limestone and facing south west, is that almost every sector is a perfectly engineered giant solar-collector. Ambient temperatures in the low 20s combined with the focused rays from the blazing sun in a cloudless sky result in overwhelming heat and a big sweaty mess where once there was a climber! Hrmm – I can hear the lack of sympathy from here!

Our base for our Buzet exploration is Camping Raspadalica, a quirky, simple campsite on top of the escarpment, immediately overlooking Buzet. It’s run by a couple of parapenters and incorporates a perfect take-off site (from what little I understand of these things) with a convenient combo of prevailing wind and thermals. We had the place pretty much to ourselves.

On to the climbing:

Buzetski Kanjon is one of the two primo venues, boasting 5* in the guide (the other being Kompanj – see below). As the name suggests, it’s not actually on the Karst edge, but is a set of 7 sectors in the Pivka and Mirna river gorges that join together just south of the medieval town of Buzet (best known as the Truffle Capital of Croatia and maybe the world?) There’s not a lot of evidence of these rivers in summer, but they’ve done a great job of carving out a climbing paradise. As with other crags in the area, what nature started the local community have picked up and equipped routes to a high standard and provided signage and parking spaces to welcome visiting climbers. Talking of parking, there’s signage at the bridge (where the gravel road running alongside the river) suggesting no vehicular access, but it “seems to be tolerated” for climbers to drive the further 1.2km to park where the canyons divide (but don’t blame me if you get a ticket!)

Here’s the view from near the “permitted?” parking, where the canyon splits.

On the right are sectors Pengari and Plaza…

Here’s a local team on one of the gout d’eau steep slabs of Plaza:

… and another team on the tufa-streaked Pengari:

This gets a bit less “in your face” around to its right hand side, where you’ll find 4 long 32m 6a/+s We did Silence is Golden and Bolting Weekend – both very good.

Around to the left are a couple of brutal 6b+s the righthand one in particular being a complete sandbag.

… as is Kopernico at 6a+ on the lower left sector (I sidled onto it to escape the crux of F#ck Slo, 6c, and it didn’t get much easier!) Down on Plaza we did at least enjoy Tolmun, 6a

Seeking shade a couple of days later, we took a left where the canyons fork to explore Sector Befana, and were enveloped by an ocean of coolth.

Unfortunately, it’s mostly 7s and 8s, with the smattering of 6bs and cs inevitably suffering the fate of all “warm-ups” on hard crags. Joker, 6b+, was actually really fun (and must have been stupendous before the polish)