A Minor Success

Last weekend I went to the Orme for Chester Si's birthday climbing trip.

On Saturday morning we travelled to Parisella's Cave and Rock Atrocity finally got crushed in 3 attempts. A celebratory meal of coffee and doughnuts on the pier shortly followed. It was truly immense! After that, we spent a chilled afternoon in Split Infinity and went to watch the Holland v Russia match in the Heights in Llanberis, it was full of blurts and scallies but at least the football was good!

Due to the horrific weather storms, we managed to sort out a bunkhouse in Nant Peris for £10 a night so we at least got a decent nights sleep and dreamt of dry weather in the mountains. When we awoke it was looking heavy again in the pass, with low grey cloud and very strong winds, so we sacked it again to the Orme and it was a beautiful thing, bathed in light with a nice breeze.

Split infinity got another visitation with Ben trying Organ Grinder and me and Si working Bell Pig (oh how frustrating catching the sidepull is..) before we ventured up to Norman's Wisdom to try out the problems up there. Ardvaark and Norman Direct were really good at 7A and 7A/+ but Snout (7B+/C) proved a bit trickier and I'll need to go back after not climbing 5 days on, to see if it feels any more amenable.

Back in the 'Pool

Well it's been a whirlwind tour of Italy over the last 2 weeks and although the weather was largely wet, it meant that me and Tom got to visit a lot of places including non-climbing related historical sites of interest and fantastic cuisine.

We spent a good few days in Florence hanging out with the 'Guru' Roberto, who gave us a great tour of the city as well as the climbing gym. Lorenzo's other friends Sabrina and Geovanni from Project O, took us out in the evenings for meals and drinks and we were both really grateful for them helping us to get out at night and see some nice spots around the city.

Upon leaving Florence, we travelled to Siena, the town in which Lore grew up in and spent a day wandering around getting lost and discovering all of the City bit by bit until hooking up with Lore and Valentina for another great meal in the evening. This was followed by a bizaare Irish folk music evening that was at an open air venue near to a University building (I think?). I loved Florence as a city but the calm feeling I got wandering around Siena was much more preferable and I think it's a beautiful place to visit. There is a strong medieval vibe to Siena thanks to the architecture and narrow streets.The Central square is visually fantastic, with an amusing Polish clown keeping the general public entertained, with some classic tricks on unknowning passers by!

After a couple of days in Siena, we went back to Follonica and had a small meal to prepare for the next day of crushing. The weather forecast was grim but the sun was shining brightly above as we set off in Lore's van of psyche to Mount Amiata. As we ascended up the slopes of the Mountain we soon realised it was going to be a complete washout yet again, so we drove over the mountain whilst Lore pointed out the many undeveloped boulders up in the woods (some looked stunning). We hooked up with a couple of Cheech and Chong lookalikes who were meant to be providing us with the key to an elitist hardcore training board hidden in Amiata but alas they were too mashed to remember where it was. Luckily, another guy 20 minutes drive away had one that worked and we released the pent up rage and psyche on these steep boards of ply.

A few hours later and we were thoroughly beasted, returning back to Bruno's restaurant and dining on fine seafood once again whilst he looked on admiringly at our ability to crush all of the food with ease! The last day was spent swimming and sunbathing near the pool and before we knew it we were on the train back to Pisa. The journey was not quite over as we realised there were no more trains to the Aeroporto, so we ventured into Pisa Central and happened upon a cabbie who relayed the bad news about the airport being closed until 5am. We bought some beers from the bar and headed off towards the airport on foot, not looking forward to a night of dossing in front of the Airport doors... but our luck was about to change! We bumped into a couple of Students fom Pisa and they said we could crash round theirs on the floor until 5ish but before we got any sleep, Martina and Petra gave us the tour of Pisa City and the notorious tower that is a lot more piccolo than I was expecting! The street art was really good, so I have posted many images on a facebook gallery, with just the 1 large picture on here. We managed about one hour of sleep before having to get up and head to the Airport and then it was followed by a stress free flight back to sunny Merseyside.

The trip has been fantastic and I am really grateful to Lore and Valentina for letting us stay so long in their several homes dotted around the West Coast of Italy! The climbing was great fun when we managed to get outside and the indoor sessions with Lore and the Guru were amazing for the psyche and future training plans. I'd like to thank Sabrina and Geovanni for the cool t-shirt and hospitality whilst we were in Florence and also the Austrian girls for saving us spending a night sleeping on the streets! Adopo.

Bouldering, bouldering, bouldering

Saturday - Amiatta

After the great meal we had a good our first taste of the bouldering. Lore took us to a very beautiful location called Amiatta, where the climbing is powerful and short with the sharpest rock I have ever pulled down on. After a tour of the routes (which looked amazing), we went down the hill and did a circuit of great warm up problems before heading back to the van and driving to the real action!

In the second location, we got some fantastic wall and arete climbs and I managed to get a possible new problem sent from a sit start via some very sharp holds and long reaches (maybe a little bit morpho ;)) and we had comedy scenes with Tom heel hooking his shoe off and me attempting to put it back on whilst he clung to the rock for the flash!

Down the hill, we all sent some hard problems on a hueco style roof before Lore took us to one of the best pieces of rock i have seen abroad, which contains 3 main lines a 7B+, 7c and his 8a roof problem which was beyond impressive and certainly very hard for the grade seeing as every move was nails! Lore was pulling down hard and was looking strong on his 8a+/b project line (the first of the Mohicans direct).

Sunday - Sasso

The next day, we were taken to an even more special place, Sassofortino which was totally serene, with scattered blocks hidden deep in the woods with the rock very similar to Magic Woods. After another warmup we went to the Lourdes roof and I was amazed at how pure the line was, utterly stunning to look at and the moves were fantastic. I managed to just about get up the easiest of the lines on the roof with a fight to top out and Lore also crushed Lourdes to the finish on the retro flash! Mightily impressive as his wrist was giving him quite a bit of pain. I was really psyched for Lourdes but wanted to go and check out Spigolo calibani that Keith had recommended to tom to go and try.

The line of Spigolo is beautiful and what was even better were the superb moves all the way to the top, it had everything, with heels, compression, crimping and jumping with an airy finish onto a damp slabby top! We worked the moves on it and quickly linked most of it but sadly the air was really humid and the rock greasy as anything I have encountered. I managed to do it in 2 overlapping halves but on the final attempt at linking I had to give in to bad skin and pain, with every finger on my left hand covered in tape to avoid going through more tips than the 2 I did on day 1. Giving up on this we spotted Tom on an even sharper problem to the right that also had a really nice line and great crimpy moves but thin skin and agony won the battle and we had to concede defeat.

In the evening, we went swimming in the outdoor pool and it was slightly cold. We did a few laps and I nearly died from the cardio! The meal afterwards was really nice with some pizza and local cheeses, ham and honey brought over by Lore and Valetina's friends. Good times!