Grand Finale
We’d set out for Croatia unsure how long the autumn weather would be fit for climbing – banking on a couple of weeks, but daring to hope for more. Almost […]
We’d set out for Croatia unsure how long the autumn weather would be fit for climbing – banking on a couple of weeks, but daring to hope for more. Almost […]
We’ve been firm fans of Oltre Finale (which translates as “beyond” Finale) for a number of years now, but had written off its more famous and long-standing neighbor as being […]
With so much climbing I’ve got into a bit of a “back-blog” so here’s a quick round up of the other crags we visited in the Aosta Valley: Corno di […]
A message from Will, fresh back from Leonidio, prompted a further exploration of the crags further up the Valgrisenche. He and a Cham team were planning a foray through the […]
No, we haven’t packed big boots and crampons for this trip. The Aosta guide is a huge tome, organised into sections according to area, and the valleys leading up to […]
The Aosta Valley runs for almost 100km from just north of our campsite (Camping Mombarone) … up to Courmayeur and the Mont Blanc tunnel. There’s a tonne of rock (140 […]
We’re taking advantage of a weather window to explore the climbing around Grand Paradiso and the Aosta Valley, starting in the lower valley whilst things perk up and dry out […]
Alex, the first named storm of the year, was forecasted to dump about 6 inches of the wet stuff on Val Penneveire on Friday, threatening to put a major dampener […]
With Jake and Leah having a rest day, we took the opportunity to explore the top end of Val Penneveire. Rocca dell’Arma sits at around 1,400m near Colle di Carpauna […]
A couple of kilometres further up the Pennavaire valley from Colletta, these three crags line the sunny south-facing flank. They’re only a few hundred metres from the road, but two […]
“The Jail” isn’t a particularly appealing name, but this is a very pleasant crag, if a bit of a hike up hill. All the routes are named after prisons (I […]
A number of factors conspired to see us leaving Germany and heading into Italy (dashing through Switzerland en route without a “Transit Stop” to avoid falling foul of any quarantine […]
With an airport day on the agenda we were looking for single pitch bolt clipping, near the road and not too far out of our way to Bergamo. This crag […]
We made the most of a much improved forecast with an early start and were on the first shuttle bus at 8am. We made short work of the “1 to […]
Val di Mello has been likened to a European Yosemite Valley, but it isn’t really a fair comparison. Whilst VdM has cliffs that are almost as high, they’re broken up […]
Jim and I are on a 10 day trip to the Alps, with a rough itinerary involving Val di Mello and the Bregaglia. Typical stormy alpine weather greets our arrival […]
The very pretty Santa Lucia sector above Toraino gets a great write up in the guide. To be honest, it’s a bit too grey and slabby for our current tastes. […]
This is the dark, gloomy north facing crag that dominates the entrance to the valley – very reminiscent of a shady Malham. We’d avoided it on our previous two visits, […]
The original crag of the Val Pennavaire, Castelbianco has an old (ok, only 20 years, but that’s ancient in these parts) sector of very steep routes – entry grade is […]
…yes, I know we said we were going to France, but somehow our random walk has taken us via Italy, and specifically the climbing in Liguria. There’s actually some logic […]