Monday 2 June 2008

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!

1 comment:

fatneck said...

Good shit and good photos lad...