Sardinia

The middle week of February saw me in Sardinia for a few days with my girlfriend, Inge. It was a chance to enjoy a little hot (warm!) rock and escape the Scottish Winter briefly. The hope was to get Inge on her first outdoor routes and put some of my recent training into practice and get some half decent on-sights done. The first days climbing saw us by the coast in a little bay Called Cala Fuili by Cala Gonone. We got a good number of routes done over the course of the day and began to realise the climbing in Sardinia really can be steep! Inge finally cut her rock teeth on some quality routes and I was happy with my on sight of the rather steep roof section of No Name 6b+. I had a go at the classic of the crag Stirari Il Frac Amelia 7a but backed off as I wasn’t happy with the tat available for clipping at the hard moves.

Obviously, being in Italy and on holiday, it would be rude not to make the most of local delicacies and some lazy starts. Coffee is an important part of the climber’s day and no day should start without an obligatory caffeine boost! However, plenty more climbing happened and a trip to the slabs of La Poltrona saw a complete change in the style of climbing. Some most enjoyable routes here made more enjoyable by the generous Italians we met who gave us a bottle of home made wine!

The following day saw a role reversal and it was Inge’s turn to put me on a horse and watch my posterior suffer! I wasn’t left too sore and quite enjoyed just plodding around at the back wondering if there was a local bar I could pull up at!

The final day saw us cramming in an afternoons climbing before the flight home. We ended up at Dimensione Verticale near Osilio, a short but very steep overhanging crag. There a lot of hard routes here and also some less steep ones further along to warm up on. The rock was very pocketed and juggy which made for positive climbing, but hard with the angle. The holiday was finished off with another 6b+ on sight called Il Cellulare Di Gio. After contemplating the initial steep section (picture above!) the route eased off and it just a case of moving up easy but pumpy ground to the top.

A fantastic week was had and has definitely set the tastebuds tingling for Sardinia. There is so much to do here and so much variety. Return is inevitable!

Peak District

Went down to the Peak District at the weekend with Ian, Simon and Ali. We intended on staying at the Climbers Club Hut beneath Froggatt but it was hoaching so we camped at North Lees beneath Stanage instead. Clearly the time spent indoors traing has paid off – in the scorching weather I led two VS’s to warm up, two HVS 5a’s and finished on Mississippi Butress Variant Direct E1 5b. Chuffed!

Weather was pants on Sunday, disapointingly, so we came back up north after trying to evade the rain in Northumberland to no avail!

Dolomites

Picked Andy up in Milan without any hastle and made our way to the Malga Ciapela campsite, where we stayed last year, beneath the Marmolada. We had approximately 8 days of available climbing, so we did our usual of cherry picking the classic routes. And what classics they were! We seemed to spend most of our time in corners. Not so bad as were excellent at bridging now! We also had a couple of days at the smaller crags and did some reat sport routes. OUr day of via ferraa was a long and hard one, totally different from last years of the same grade.

The weather caught up with us by the last couple of days and after driving through some horrendous storms (never driven in rain as heavy) we decided to use the bad weather as a travelling day and head back to Chamonix for some cragging. A scorching day at Servoz saw us climbed out and ready to head back home.