So I'm back in Rome. Should be finished up her within a few days so I figured I would give you a 's heads up on what's happening and what happened. Yesterday Emilie and I parted ways, she with her friend Megan took the train and the night ferry to Croatia while I took the train to Rome. Emilie and Megan arrived safely in Croatia, I confirmed that this morning.
So back tracking briefly, Emilie and I went back into Valle dell'Orco after the last post. I believe that was on Saturday that we posted. We had intended to do some hiking in the Valle on sunday, but the weather turned out to be pretty poor looking. So instead we opted to attempt to climb Fessura per P.A. (100m, 4b (5.5) 3 pitches). The climb followed a generally nice crack line up a slab called la Pyramide. There was nothing super difficult about the climb and it was generally forgetable except for a couple of nice jamming sequences on the second and third pitch. The most interesting thing about the climb was the bolts. The climb was perfectly protectable using traditional gear yet had bolts on it. On the second pitch the hangers on the two bolts were hammered down and rendered useless but they were still usable on the third pitch. Every one of the 4 bolts on the pitch were within a foot of a bomber nut placement. I found it quite odd. Anyway, we rappelled off the route just as the weather turned nasty.
Monday brought rain in the morning but a clear if windy afternoon. We figured to take a second attempt at Spigolo. Unfortunatly it again turned out to be too hard for me to lead the crux and I bailed again. I think that I have the move figured out now and will likely try it one last time.
Tuesday, was windy and my hands were pretty beat up from the cracks of the previous days. So we decided to climb a nice slab route called Via del Placche (300m, 5c) (way of plate) 8 pitches of max 5c (5.9) slab climbing though the slab was only at about 4c (5.7) and the 5c bits were more vertical with holds/cracks to climb. The 1st pitch is a gentle huff up a small arrette/chimney (4b). At the first anchor we were passed by an Italian party, the leader climbed extremely fast, while the second (possibly a guided client) climbed slower and more labourously. Regardless, they climbed faster than we did so past they went up the second pitch. The second pitch was a short awkward climb the corner of a large flake (5c). I ended up taking a small fall while doing the moves but pulled through on the second attempt. Emilie came through like a champ. Again there were bolts but it could have been traditionally protected. In this case I used the bolts. The thirdy pitch, Emilie bravely led (4c). This was the first slab pitch and she felt it was a bit runout between the bolts especially at the crux of the pitch where you had to step out left unto a true friction slab and pad up to the anchors with a 20foot fall potentional. I took the next pitch, a short (5a) slab pitch with a single bolt as protection. From there we needed to consider the rest of the route, the initial route (via delle placche) ended and we traversed onto another route using a foot traverse up an flake. My #3 bd camalot was slightly tipped out in the flake but probably would have been good enough for a fall but the climbing was easy (4a). From here came the 6th pitch, a 60 foot slab to a crack line that traversed right (4b). The slab had one bolt about 20 feet up. So off I go, no point stopping or thinking about the fall potential, cause well, you just don't fall. It was actually easier than I had expected as the rock had some serious friction. A small clusterfuck at the belay stopped me about 5 metres from the crack system but I was solid and able to stay put while Emilie cleaned up. At the crack system the climb continued up through the next several slabby pitches until the last 5c crux in the last pitch, a single friction move on tiny crimpers. Not too hard. Oh and Emilie will want me to write that it was bloody cold on the rock. Very windy. Reallllly enjoyable climb though.
Yesterday, Emilie and I only had the morning to climb as we needed to get back to Torino in the afternoon. So, we climbed a short climb called via del diadro, (3 pitch 5c, 100m) The first pitch, which Emilie led was an easy 4b up to the first belay, she was gentle and opted to climb above the hole that would have been easy for her but hard for me to slip through. Nice girl :-). The second pitch was probably the most sustained 5b (5.8) that I have ever led. 50m of pretty solid 5.8 climbing through corners, small overhangs and laybacks. The gear was good and I didn't feel particularly nervous despite being near my limit for gear routes. Emilie enjoyed the climb but at one point found herself climbing up a slightly differant way than I. She had to hang on the rope in order to get back on the route that I took. She complained because it looked super easy the way she went, to me, the piton looked nicer than the unprotected bit. The last pitch, a solid 5c layback dihedral went extremely well. I was able to climb it without falling or hanging on the rope (so my second 5.9 gear climb without falling). Good times were had on the route!
So, now I am in rome, my poor hands are healing which is good. Hopefully I will be back climbing on the 16th or 17th. Emilie will return to Torino on the 19th. I'll let her keep the blog up to date until I start being exciting again.
Oh yes, just a quick climbing dictionary for those who are confused by all the climbing lexicon in the past two posts:
Chimney - a large < bodysized crack in the rock. Generally cause for moaning and complaining and lots of grunting while climbing.
Arrette - a ridge shapped chunk of rock. Generally much smaller and higher angle than a proper ridge (I don't remember if I said that we climbed one or not)
Crack - A crack in the rock. Differant sizes include - too small (Emilie's fingers), finger crack (jam my fingers inside), hand crack (jam my hand inside), too big (jam everything else inside. Includes chimneys)
Hex - Hexagonal shaped piece of aluminum. Called a Dadi in Italian. We thought the climb called for us to bring our Daddies along. We though the price tag would be too high.
Cam - a funky device that I carry along with me, it's heavy, costs too much but kick butt in Granite to protect myself from falling.
Nuts - 1. Something we need to be in order to enjoy climbing. 2. Things we need in order to climb. 3. Wedge shapped pieces of aluminum used like hexes and cams.
Bolts - unlike hexes, cams and nuts, these are pre-placed for us and we simply clip into them. Generally not placed near where hexes, cams or nuts can be placed.
Dihedral (Diedro) - a corner with a crack in the back. Generally climbed by laybacking.
Layback (ing) - the technique of plastering your feet on the rock and hanging off a crack sort of in a sitting position. (Hands are feet are very near to each other) Requires lots of strength as it is very tiring to maintain the opposition.
Slab (placche) - a style of climbing where falling hurts. Essentially uses only friction to climb as there are few holds of substance. Always less than vertical, except in Arco where there are overhanging technical slab climbs. Don't ask me how that works.
I think that's it. Feel free to ask if you are confused about any other technical jargons that I use.
Cheers!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Where are they????
So, I'm sure all you astute readers are wondering... "Where are they? Have they fallen off a cliff? (a few times) Have they drowned in a river? (almost but much closer to freezing) Or have they found a little paridise of rock and been just too darned busy climbing? (much closer to the truth)"
Let's back track. Last you heard we were in Bologna, heading onwards to Parma and then Torino. Well we left Bologna as per schedule and drove into Parma. There we ate some proscuitto. It was good, but expensive and practically identical to all the other proscuittos we've eaten throughout Italy. So onward and upwards we thought... Of course good fortune can only last so long and as we drove I saw this naggling little light on my dashboard. The battery light was flashing on and off and on and off in a meaningless attempt to communicate with me. I obviously was unable to understand the nuacences of a 1981 westfalia light communication. So upon arrival to Torino we headed into an internet cafe for some research. The connection was terrible and the machines extremely buggy (one of the reasons the blog has been thus neglected) however I was able to determine that the problem was with my battery! Ah ha the battery light implies something is wrong with the battery. Brilliant German engineering. (and poor google skills). So off to the dealership we went. The dealership service was of course closed on saturday so they told us to come back on monday. "Monday" we exclaimed a look of horror on our faces. "What are we going to do until monday?"
Thus commenced a three day unplanned stop in Torino. The remainder of saturday was spent celebrating canada day with some fajita's. The most Canadian thing we could find in the super market. Yes, I ashamed. Sunday was spent trying to sleep in while some dudes picked through the dumpsters across the street. We wandered around to a really good gelataria where we cried our sorrows into some gelato. Monday we found some good news! The problem with Lucy was the regulator of the alternator. Something was shorter than it was supposed to be. The service department was VERY helpful to us. It only cost about 5 days of food! So we will be hungry when we return to Canada. (I love my Dad!) We also met another fellow from rockclimbing.com named Christian. It is my informed opinion that European phone numbers are too complex for my poor Canadian brain. Christian had to spell out exactly how to call him after I tried and got a very curt response from some dude: The Number is NOT correct. We met, talked climbing, had pizza and planned for the next day.
That evening we found a nice piazza, the same one where we would leave Lucy for the next day, and started to settle in to sleep. Kiddy corner from us was a hooker struting her stuff. Emilie looked at her (we are starting to get used to hookers everywhere in Italy including the middle of nowhere) and wondered how long it would take her to get picked up. I said 5 minutes. She didn't believe it. So we watched for a few minutes then started to prepare to sleep. Another couple of minutes passed and low and behold a car pulled up and she was gone. 4.5 minutes. Then the question came up, how long until she would be back. I said, 10 minutes. Emilie again figured it would be longer. 9.5 minutes later she had returned. Wow! I'm good. After this, I guessed it would take her another 5 minutes to get picked up. 2 minutes later she had hopped into another car. Emilie owes me alot of money! At this point we went to sleep and never noticed her come back again.
The following morning, Christian arrived bright and early and we set off into the Magical land of Valle dell'Orco (aka Paradise Rocks). The climb of choice was a 8 pitch 5c (5.9) "Nautalus" that scaled El Sergente. Yes to those in the know, the name is a referance to El Capitan. Neither Emilie nor I really register the existance of a chimney pitch rather kept hearing "super classic". So off we went, I took the first pitch a nice layed back 5b (5.8) and the second pitch which is forgotten by all. (obviously a forgettable pitch) The third pitch, which Christian led, was the chimney pitch. There was no gear except for one bolt 2/3 of the way up. Christia grunted his way up in good style (at least I assume it was good style cause we couldn't see him) and then it was our turns to go. Emilie went first. She was a bit tentitive but made it through the most difficult part of the chimney with little more than a whimper or five. I didn't make it. The chimney, a squeeze chimney was just slightly too small for me to comfortably jam my knees, feet and ass on the rock. Instead I was forced to torque off my knees in a manner as painful as it is difficult to describe. Halfway up I torqued one final time, gave a great cry of pain, then fell down the chimney until the rope above and my butt caught me in the rock. Most painful thing I've ever done while climbing (fortunatly the knee is fine if a bit scraped up). Christian lowered a rope to me and I was able to haul myself up the chimney in about as poor form as was available to me. But it worked. For last chimney bit, both Emilie and I chose to take the face option and jam the thin finger crack to the belay. Moral: Never climb chimneys.
The next pitch (which I led) was a simple pitch which led to a large grassy ledge (VERY LARGE) upon which we untied and wandered to the next section of the climb. Unsure exactly where the climb went, Christian led up into the unknown. After getting briefly lost, he led us into a nice dihedral then a difficult dihedral with a cam stuck in the crux handhold. Exiting the dihedral he went over to a tree where you could either climb the tree with crappy handholds or jam up the PERFECT hand crack. Both Emilie and Christian opted for the tree climb while I jamed the crack. Mmmm crack. The small section of perfect crack was enough to make me forget the entire chimney episode and like the route once again. At this point, with 2 pitches left to climb, we had to bail due to rain. So we did. That evening, in search of chicken wings (shout out to mugs! I miss you!) we stopped at an Irish pub and found out that not only do Italians not make chicken wings but they also don't make good burgers. The beer was good though. Yay, Irish beer. (I have yet to find a good Italian beer)
The following day, both Emilie and I were sore and dispite our best intentions of going to climb we ended up shopping and spending time on the internet (unfortunatly a small family emergency has neccesitated a hold in my vacation and on the 13th I will be makeing my way to Rome to deal with some things. Fortunatly, a friend of Emilie will be making her way to meet us and they will be going together to Croatia for a week while I get things figured out). We didn't get out to the crag until 8pm. At that point we tried the famous Kosterlitz crack an amazing(ly hard) splitter crack on a boulder. It was hard and I didn't get off the ground. So we went to eat. The area near the boulder said no overnight parking, so we drove somewhere more secluded and parked there for the night. Dinner was a complex affair involving 3 pots, 2 bowls, 2 mugs and several forks and knives. Penne Primavera with garlic bread(ish) and mixed salad.
On Thursday Emilie and I set off bright and early to climb Pesche d'Aprile (April fools) 6 pitch (170m) 5c. The climb was fantastic with plenty of varied climbing including jam cracks, layback flakes, juggy ceilings and a phenomenal dihedral which I think is the first 5.9 pitch I have ever led cleanly on gear. (yay me) We ate leftovers from dinner the previous night. We also took a nice swim in the near by river. I'm not sure if it was colder because of our lack of clothing or not but BRRRR it was cold.
Friday, to recuperate, we decided to crag. So we hiked up to El Sergente to climb a scythe like 6a (5.10a). The climb started with a dihedral for 20 feet followed by 10 feet of jam crack. A 20 foot hand jam rightward traverse led to a short 6 foot vertical section (the crux) followed by 10 feet of curving vertical finger jams with tenous smears and a final 5 foot finger traverse on shitty chains before a massive flake led to the chains. I hung on pretty much every piece of gear I placed, but was able to climb the route without pulling any gear. After I finished the route, Emilie took a run at it and climbed it in good style only falling a couple times while trying to pull the crux. I took a second run up the climb on toprope and was able to do it and only fell once while trying to transfer my weight from the hand traverse into the vertical section. Great climb. Following this, we went to a lakeside crag to climb some easier routes and get Emilie some practice placing gear. Alas, we couldn't swim in the lake as it was a dam lake. Yesterday evening we discouvered an evil in Valle dell'Orco. A pizzaria that ranks in the top 3 we have had in Europe so far. My excuse (since we will be eating there everyday for the next couple of weeks) is that we are only going to be taking one or two massive road trips through Europe so we should enjoy the pizza. The pizza place also made a mistake and gave us a litre of really good wine when we only asked for 1/2 a litre. The girl puts it down, I ask "Is that a litre?" She replies, "No no that's a half litre". I look at it, that's the biggest damn half letre I've seen in my life. Turns out there was a mistake but they only charged us for half a litre. The pity is that I had to drive so I had to moderate my drinking so some of the wine went unfinished.
Today Emilie and I attempted a climb called Spigolo (5 pitch, 145m 5c) Due to a lack of sleep (possibly caused by too much wine) and a heavy butt (possibly caused by too much Italian food) I had to aid through the crux of the route 3 pitches in. (a 5c (5.9) over hanging crack, the crux as usual being pulling the lip) The effort exhausted me and after Emilie reached me at the belay, we bailed from the climb. We will return to the climb in a few days with renewed vigour!
And now we are here, in a little town about 30 minutes from Torino and an hour from the climbing area writing for you so you may to enjoy our adventures. Oh just to make everybody who climbs just a little more jealous... everything we've climbed on in the last week has been bomber granite.
Stay tuned for the next post, upcoming, another week in Valle Dell'Orco. Yee HAW! (and maybe pictures)
Let's back track. Last you heard we were in Bologna, heading onwards to Parma and then Torino. Well we left Bologna as per schedule and drove into Parma. There we ate some proscuitto. It was good, but expensive and practically identical to all the other proscuittos we've eaten throughout Italy. So onward and upwards we thought... Of course good fortune can only last so long and as we drove I saw this naggling little light on my dashboard. The battery light was flashing on and off and on and off in a meaningless attempt to communicate with me. I obviously was unable to understand the nuacences of a 1981 westfalia light communication. So upon arrival to Torino we headed into an internet cafe for some research. The connection was terrible and the machines extremely buggy (one of the reasons the blog has been thus neglected) however I was able to determine that the problem was with my battery! Ah ha the battery light implies something is wrong with the battery. Brilliant German engineering. (and poor google skills). So off to the dealership we went. The dealership service was of course closed on saturday so they told us to come back on monday. "Monday" we exclaimed a look of horror on our faces. "What are we going to do until monday?"
Thus commenced a three day unplanned stop in Torino. The remainder of saturday was spent celebrating canada day with some fajita's. The most Canadian thing we could find in the super market. Yes, I ashamed. Sunday was spent trying to sleep in while some dudes picked through the dumpsters across the street. We wandered around to a really good gelataria where we cried our sorrows into some gelato. Monday we found some good news! The problem with Lucy was the regulator of the alternator. Something was shorter than it was supposed to be. The service department was VERY helpful to us. It only cost about 5 days of food! So we will be hungry when we return to Canada. (I love my Dad!) We also met another fellow from rockclimbing.com named Christian. It is my informed opinion that European phone numbers are too complex for my poor Canadian brain. Christian had to spell out exactly how to call him after I tried and got a very curt response from some dude: The Number is NOT correct. We met, talked climbing, had pizza and planned for the next day.
That evening we found a nice piazza, the same one where we would leave Lucy for the next day, and started to settle in to sleep. Kiddy corner from us was a hooker struting her stuff. Emilie looked at her (we are starting to get used to hookers everywhere in Italy including the middle of nowhere) and wondered how long it would take her to get picked up. I said 5 minutes. She didn't believe it. So we watched for a few minutes then started to prepare to sleep. Another couple of minutes passed and low and behold a car pulled up and she was gone. 4.5 minutes. Then the question came up, how long until she would be back. I said, 10 minutes. Emilie again figured it would be longer. 9.5 minutes later she had returned. Wow! I'm good. After this, I guessed it would take her another 5 minutes to get picked up. 2 minutes later she had hopped into another car. Emilie owes me alot of money! At this point we went to sleep and never noticed her come back again.
The following morning, Christian arrived bright and early and we set off into the Magical land of Valle dell'Orco (aka Paradise Rocks). The climb of choice was a 8 pitch 5c (5.9) "Nautalus" that scaled El Sergente. Yes to those in the know, the name is a referance to El Capitan. Neither Emilie nor I really register the existance of a chimney pitch rather kept hearing "super classic". So off we went, I took the first pitch a nice layed back 5b (5.8) and the second pitch which is forgotten by all. (obviously a forgettable pitch) The third pitch, which Christian led, was the chimney pitch. There was no gear except for one bolt 2/3 of the way up. Christia grunted his way up in good style (at least I assume it was good style cause we couldn't see him) and then it was our turns to go. Emilie went first. She was a bit tentitive but made it through the most difficult part of the chimney with little more than a whimper or five. I didn't make it. The chimney, a squeeze chimney was just slightly too small for me to comfortably jam my knees, feet and ass on the rock. Instead I was forced to torque off my knees in a manner as painful as it is difficult to describe. Halfway up I torqued one final time, gave a great cry of pain, then fell down the chimney until the rope above and my butt caught me in the rock. Most painful thing I've ever done while climbing (fortunatly the knee is fine if a bit scraped up). Christian lowered a rope to me and I was able to haul myself up the chimney in about as poor form as was available to me. But it worked. For last chimney bit, both Emilie and I chose to take the face option and jam the thin finger crack to the belay. Moral: Never climb chimneys.
The next pitch (which I led) was a simple pitch which led to a large grassy ledge (VERY LARGE) upon which we untied and wandered to the next section of the climb. Unsure exactly where the climb went, Christian led up into the unknown. After getting briefly lost, he led us into a nice dihedral then a difficult dihedral with a cam stuck in the crux handhold. Exiting the dihedral he went over to a tree where you could either climb the tree with crappy handholds or jam up the PERFECT hand crack. Both Emilie and Christian opted for the tree climb while I jamed the crack. Mmmm crack. The small section of perfect crack was enough to make me forget the entire chimney episode and like the route once again. At this point, with 2 pitches left to climb, we had to bail due to rain. So we did. That evening, in search of chicken wings (shout out to mugs! I miss you!) we stopped at an Irish pub and found out that not only do Italians not make chicken wings but they also don't make good burgers. The beer was good though. Yay, Irish beer. (I have yet to find a good Italian beer)
The following day, both Emilie and I were sore and dispite our best intentions of going to climb we ended up shopping and spending time on the internet (unfortunatly a small family emergency has neccesitated a hold in my vacation and on the 13th I will be makeing my way to Rome to deal with some things. Fortunatly, a friend of Emilie will be making her way to meet us and they will be going together to Croatia for a week while I get things figured out). We didn't get out to the crag until 8pm. At that point we tried the famous Kosterlitz crack an amazing(ly hard) splitter crack on a boulder. It was hard and I didn't get off the ground. So we went to eat. The area near the boulder said no overnight parking, so we drove somewhere more secluded and parked there for the night. Dinner was a complex affair involving 3 pots, 2 bowls, 2 mugs and several forks and knives. Penne Primavera with garlic bread(ish) and mixed salad.
On Thursday Emilie and I set off bright and early to climb Pesche d'Aprile (April fools) 6 pitch (170m) 5c. The climb was fantastic with plenty of varied climbing including jam cracks, layback flakes, juggy ceilings and a phenomenal dihedral which I think is the first 5.9 pitch I have ever led cleanly on gear. (yay me) We ate leftovers from dinner the previous night. We also took a nice swim in the near by river. I'm not sure if it was colder because of our lack of clothing or not but BRRRR it was cold.
Friday, to recuperate, we decided to crag. So we hiked up to El Sergente to climb a scythe like 6a (5.10a). The climb started with a dihedral for 20 feet followed by 10 feet of jam crack. A 20 foot hand jam rightward traverse led to a short 6 foot vertical section (the crux) followed by 10 feet of curving vertical finger jams with tenous smears and a final 5 foot finger traverse on shitty chains before a massive flake led to the chains. I hung on pretty much every piece of gear I placed, but was able to climb the route without pulling any gear. After I finished the route, Emilie took a run at it and climbed it in good style only falling a couple times while trying to pull the crux. I took a second run up the climb on toprope and was able to do it and only fell once while trying to transfer my weight from the hand traverse into the vertical section. Great climb. Following this, we went to a lakeside crag to climb some easier routes and get Emilie some practice placing gear. Alas, we couldn't swim in the lake as it was a dam lake. Yesterday evening we discouvered an evil in Valle dell'Orco. A pizzaria that ranks in the top 3 we have had in Europe so far. My excuse (since we will be eating there everyday for the next couple of weeks) is that we are only going to be taking one or two massive road trips through Europe so we should enjoy the pizza. The pizza place also made a mistake and gave us a litre of really good wine when we only asked for 1/2 a litre. The girl puts it down, I ask "Is that a litre?" She replies, "No no that's a half litre". I look at it, that's the biggest damn half letre I've seen in my life. Turns out there was a mistake but they only charged us for half a litre. The pity is that I had to drive so I had to moderate my drinking so some of the wine went unfinished.
Today Emilie and I attempted a climb called Spigolo (5 pitch, 145m 5c) Due to a lack of sleep (possibly caused by too much wine) and a heavy butt (possibly caused by too much Italian food) I had to aid through the crux of the route 3 pitches in. (a 5c (5.9) over hanging crack, the crux as usual being pulling the lip) The effort exhausted me and after Emilie reached me at the belay, we bailed from the climb. We will return to the climb in a few days with renewed vigour!
And now we are here, in a little town about 30 minutes from Torino and an hour from the climbing area writing for you so you may to enjoy our adventures. Oh just to make everybody who climbs just a little more jealous... everything we've climbed on in the last week has been bomber granite.
Stay tuned for the next post, upcoming, another week in Valle Dell'Orco. Yee HAW! (and maybe pictures)
Friday, June 29, 2007
Just a quick post from Bologna...
Hey all,
This will be just a quick post, it's late and we need to get climbing again so will be leaving early tomorrow. No pics with this post, I fear that the dial up connection may take forever to upload anything...
After returning to Rome, Emilie and I braved the incredible heat (I swear, Canadians belong in the snow... at least this Canadian does) to eat dinner at an authentic and tasty Italian restaurant and spend a day with Emily and Justin (two auzzies we met in Naples). On Tuesday morning we blasted out of Rome with fire coming from the engine (yes it was that hot... I swear at times it felt like my face would melt off). On tuesday we quickly drove through Assisi (where my sister Christine got married 3 years ago - Emilie thought it was quite a gorgeous town), and Perugia before stopping at a little town outside of Siena for the night. Wednesday was spent in Siena. Siena is a nice little town, but parking was a bit of a pain. Mostly walked along the old medieval town centre. Wednesday evening we headed into San Gimignano for a quick evening stroll amonst the towers.
Thursday was spent driving through Florence (touristy and overly long lineups i.e a few hours per site... we didn't stay long. We did take pictures of the "fake" David, a free replica that was outside one of the churches) and onto Bologna where we met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin (and cousin's gf) for dinner. Friday (today) was spent in bologna, initially with my uncle who gave us an impromptu tour of the center. He showed us several cool things including climbing the tower at the centre of Bologna, 97m high. Higher than the Pisa tower by the way! It was a fun and interesting time. Bologna, though somewhat barren of important touristy stuff (and therefore the associated crowds) is a nice town and is reknown for its Porticas. One can walk through most of the town center while remaining under cover thanks to the numerous porticoes... My uncle conviniently forgot to point out one of the more interesting sights in bologna, but a group of giggling youths gave it away. In the evening we went to a bbq with some friends of my cousin. It was really good as it was the first steak we have eaten since leaving Canada. The steak was good but not as good as good old Alberta beef. Better than Ontario beef though. Emilie and I had to rebuke some Canadian stereotypes about how we only eat bison steak and never eat pasta. Good times were had.
Tomorrow we are heading through Parma to buy some prosciutto and then onto Torino and the Vall d'Orco for some crack climbing. Yee haw!
This will be just a quick post, it's late and we need to get climbing again so will be leaving early tomorrow. No pics with this post, I fear that the dial up connection may take forever to upload anything...
After returning to Rome, Emilie and I braved the incredible heat (I swear, Canadians belong in the snow... at least this Canadian does) to eat dinner at an authentic and tasty Italian restaurant and spend a day with Emily and Justin (two auzzies we met in Naples). On Tuesday morning we blasted out of Rome with fire coming from the engine (yes it was that hot... I swear at times it felt like my face would melt off). On tuesday we quickly drove through Assisi (where my sister Christine got married 3 years ago - Emilie thought it was quite a gorgeous town), and Perugia before stopping at a little town outside of Siena for the night. Wednesday was spent in Siena. Siena is a nice little town, but parking was a bit of a pain. Mostly walked along the old medieval town centre. Wednesday evening we headed into San Gimignano for a quick evening stroll amonst the towers.
Thursday was spent driving through Florence (touristy and overly long lineups i.e a few hours per site... we didn't stay long. We did take pictures of the "fake" David, a free replica that was outside one of the churches) and onto Bologna where we met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin (and cousin's gf) for dinner. Friday (today) was spent in bologna, initially with my uncle who gave us an impromptu tour of the center. He showed us several cool things including climbing the tower at the centre of Bologna, 97m high. Higher than the Pisa tower by the way! It was a fun and interesting time. Bologna, though somewhat barren of important touristy stuff (and therefore the associated crowds) is a nice town and is reknown for its Porticas. One can walk through most of the town center while remaining under cover thanks to the numerous porticoes... My uncle conviniently forgot to point out one of the more interesting sights in bologna, but a group of giggling youths gave it away. In the evening we went to a bbq with some friends of my cousin. It was really good as it was the first steak we have eaten since leaving Canada. The steak was good but not as good as good old Alberta beef. Better than Ontario beef though. Emilie and I had to rebuke some Canadian stereotypes about how we only eat bison steak and never eat pasta. Good times were had.
Tomorrow we are heading through Parma to buy some prosciutto and then onto Torino and the Vall d'Orco for some crack climbing. Yee haw!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
We Survived (and plans changed... again)
In old Napoli where love is king, when boy meets girl, here's what they say...
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore...
Well... Napoli is supposed to be the king of love. And in love we fell. Naples despite it's rough reputation is actually a vibrant and moving city. Lots of cheap pizza as well. I can't say it was the best pizza in Italy or the world (that crown currently resides about 1hr outside of Milan but we wouldn't be able to get back there if we tried) but we made damn sure that it wasn't the best pizza by having a pizza every couple days. Mmmmm.
Emilie and I stayed in a really nice hostel for, instead of the original 2 nights, 5 nights total. It was a really nice time and we meet some really nice people. The food was amazing and the touristy stuff felt far less touristy than most of the other places we've been so far. Except for Pompei. That was a tourist hell. More of a hell because it was hot. But there were lots of tourists there as well. Pretty cool huge town. In 4 hours of cooking we were only able to see maybe 1/2 of it. Good times though. All in all, Emilie and I both highly recomend Napoli. (And the hostel, Giovanni's house)
In the end we decided not to head to Greece. Money and time concerns made us reconsider. So now we are back in Rome. We will be picking up Lucy and heading back north for the cooler areas.
PS: It's getting to be postcard time, so before sending a mass e-mail looking for mailing addresses, I am going to tell everybody to either e-mail Emilie or I.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore...
Well... Napoli is supposed to be the king of love. And in love we fell. Naples despite it's rough reputation is actually a vibrant and moving city. Lots of cheap pizza as well. I can't say it was the best pizza in Italy or the world (that crown currently resides about 1hr outside of Milan but we wouldn't be able to get back there if we tried) but we made damn sure that it wasn't the best pizza by having a pizza every couple days. Mmmmm.
Emilie and I stayed in a really nice hostel for, instead of the original 2 nights, 5 nights total. It was a really nice time and we meet some really nice people. The food was amazing and the touristy stuff felt far less touristy than most of the other places we've been so far. Except for Pompei. That was a tourist hell. More of a hell because it was hot. But there were lots of tourists there as well. Pretty cool huge town. In 4 hours of cooking we were only able to see maybe 1/2 of it. Good times though. All in all, Emilie and I both highly recomend Napoli. (And the hostel, Giovanni's house)
In the end we decided not to head to Greece. Money and time concerns made us reconsider. So now we are back in Rome. We will be picking up Lucy and heading back north for the cooler areas.
PS: It's getting to be postcard time, so before sending a mass e-mail looking for mailing addresses, I am going to tell everybody to either e-mail Emilie or I.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
In Napoli....
Good Evening Everyone, good news for all, today is a picture day! Our card reader is just inconvenient which means we rarely carry it along on our trips - so usually we dont have any ways of uploading pictures when we happen to use the internet. But today, we finally get a bunch of internet access thanks to this wonderful hostel we are staying at, so we now get a chance to look at our pictures and select a few to post.
So David and I decided that it would be fun to leave Lucy in Rome and go on a backpacking-hosteling adventure. Which has led us to Naples, our first stop. While David has been in a few hostels before this is my first time, and I love it! Having not previously reserved for the hostel, we arrived in Naples and walked to the first recommended spot in our LonelyPlanet Guide. That hostel was fully booked but they recommended another one for us, which lucky for us, had some beds available. We are now staying at Giovannis Hostel, where we have already met some amazing folks (particularly one german girl Carina, and two aussies, Emily and Justin). The hostel is run by an italian man and is helped by Valeria, who speaks perfect english and is hilarious. She gave us a great virtual tour of Naples and pointed out some really neat places to go visit - which were not mentioned in our guides. Yesterday we did a several hour walk around Naples, which is a crazy town!! Tiny roads, sooo many cars and motorbikes (insane drivers going SUPER fast), and not quite as touristy as say Rome or Cinque Terra. You actually get to catch glimpses of people "living" instead of hundreds of tourists... Today we went to Pompei. I hadnt imagined it being to big, but in retrospect it was an entire city that was covered in ash... Ok, lets backtrack a few weeks and see a few pictures...
So a long long way back is Les Calanques, southern france. Which was intended to be a few days of climbing which turned into one day - beautiful area, but slightly too polished rock for our liking. In the picture you see one of the main calanques - which is a bay - that we followed while walking to our climb (which turned out to be a 2 hour hike because David brought us on the sight seeing path as opposed to the direct path - we did get to see more views this way though!)
Before going to les Calanques we had done a road trip to Marseille. The picture below shows one of the two forts that used to protect the port of Marseille.
Now that I think of it... I am not sure I mentioned that I got rid of my hair in Aix en Provence?? It was just well itchy and too hot. So chop chop. See below for the results... (picture taken in Marseille...)
If you remember I did a slight detour to Corsica, where I sadly did not take very many pictures. However you can glimpse the sea and the mountains in the two pictures below. The first picture was taken off the docks before boarding the ferry and the second is the main beach in the town, both of which in Ile Rousse. I had originally taken the ferry from Nice to Bastia, then trained from Bastia to Calvi, took a bus to Calezanna (which is the start of the GR20), walked back to Calvi and took the train to Ile Rousse. All of which to end up in Nice again and take the train to Verona to meet up with David again.
After a night in Verona (NOrthern Italy), David and I left for Arco, north of Lago di Garda and the first day went to do a bit of slab climbing at a very close local crag. Notice that I am climbing with only one shoe as David - whos only duty was to bring the shoes and the quickdraws - left one of my shoes in the van (hopefully the picture isnt too small??). It was still good fun and my barefoot turned out to have quite a bit more friction than expected.
There was this statue on the way to the center of town in Arco, which seemed pretty huge at the time, but that appears to fit Davids size quite suprisingly... His beard sure is getting long! (He finally caved today and shaved! He now looks 10 years younger and not quite as wild...)
After Arco and a quick return to Verona, we headed off to Val di Mello (climbing - hiking area), and slept in the totally isolated little village of Sasso Remmeno. It was as we mentioned earlier a gathering of folks for Sarahs birthday... The first picture is the view from the campsite. Ahhh granite, the best rock ever :)
The first climb that we did in Val di Mello below following the waterfall directly on the right. Only 2 pitches with a very easy finish.
Of course couldnt leave without a group photo (top row Joel, Lua, Melissa ,David, Daniel, Heiko, Andrea, Paolo, Paolo, Farris. Bottom row Elena, Sarah, Me, Angela, Philippe (holding the EuroFreaks Tshirt), Taz)
Daniel, Angela and David enjoying some white wine after an intense climbing day :) Wine is just sooooooo cheap here its unbeliveable! Angela and Heiko live in Trento, close to Arco, so we are likely going to meet up with them later on on our trip. They both are also doing PHDs at the international University in Trento, in computer science... Tempting area for higher education, wouldnt you say?
After all this intense climbing, we left Val di Mello and booted down to the west coast of italy, past Milan. We drove all the way to Genova where we almost took the ferry to Corsica... but decided instead to stay in Italy... So we ended in Vernazza, which is the 4th town in a series of 5 towns of the coast of Italy, known as Cinque Terre. Probably the most english we have heard in this entire trip, yet despite the tourists, remains beautiful and charming.
They cultivate along the sides of the "mountains" (hills i guess). And its incredible how steep it gets! It reminds me of the cultivation of rice in levels that I once saw in Indonesia...
They have these crazy tracks set up along the lenght of the hill so that a mini "train" can be loaded with the grapes and brought either to the top or the bottom... Now I bet you would get more of a thrill on those rides than any amusement park - assuming you would trust it enough to dare get up on it! You might notice it in the picture below, the white "dot" in the middle is the motor and the drivers seat...
The lemon trees were deliciously tempting and mostly out of reach...
After a few days relaxing in Cinque Terre, off to Rome with a quick stop in Pisa. Yes the tower is still sinking at about 1mm per year... :) Engineers...ppfff cant trust them! Speaking of which, after weeks of attempting to log onto my universitys website to confirm that I have indeed graduated, I finally managed to connect yesterday, and Yes, I am officially done!!! Wooohoo. My convocation was last Saturday, Congratulations to all Systems Design! :)) (I did celebrate: Davids cousin Andrea brought us, while in Rome, to the 40th birthday party of a friend of his. Suprisingly one of the wildest and biggest home parties i have attended, with Djs, lights, dance floor and what seemed like a never ending source of alcohol! We left the party sometime after 2 AM, Andrea, was still going strong, and came back around 6AM. Craziness!) Ok lets get back on track again...
Next stop Rome. Soo many things to see, what a fascinating town! Its an interesting mix of old and "new", ruins, churches, old traditional clothes...
Fancy gelato shops with tons of flavours of yummy goodness...
The colosseum... This side is better preserved than the other because for the longest time they used the stone from the no longer used colosseum to rebuild other buildings. Today it has been partially restored. Apparently the colosseum used to be mostly marble, but the marble was taken away in order to build fancy churches for the Pope. They replaced the marble with "simple rock"... I was really looking forward to seeing "gladiators" that you can take pictures with (well that other tourists can take pictures with). We mostly saw Roman Legionaires with a varying degree of sophisticated costumes... The most hilarious was one with a broom as his helmet.
Of course a visit to Rome would not be complete without visiting the Trevi fountain... I cossed a coin into the fountain to insure that I would "return to Rome" again...
Davids uncle Stefano brought us on a car ride around Rome which included the top of one of Romes 7 hills from which we had a marvellous panoramic view of the city. Can you spot the colosseum in the picture?
Now we move on to Naples... One of the churches here in the picture below... though the important part is all the stripped blue and white ribbons which currently hang on many streets. Naples has made it to Seria A, which is the best Football (Soccer) League in Italia! Woohoo.
Today a visit to Pompei, where we past this very tempting fresh lemonade and orange juice stand. They had lemons that were humongous!!! There is something fishy going on...
One of the many pompei pictures... this one is particularly nice because you can see Vesuvius in the background. We have decided not to go up on the crater, as we have heard not so exciting stories from some of the people at the hostel. We therefore made sure to have a good look from afar today. It is also quite expensive to go see it...
Ok, below is slightly creepy... This man appearantly died suffocated by the ash... Probably screaming or gasping for air as his mouth was open. The bodies they found in Pompei were filled with liquid cement to fill the cavities that were preserved in the ashes... Which is why we can now see them today.
Another not so appealing picture below, taking in Naples during our walk along the docks. It is a trippe and cow head and fish stand... Luckily, the cow head, in the middle of the picture, isnt too obvious... We do have a close up for any that are interested! :)
A picture with our new friends :) Josh, Carina, David, Emily and Justin. In the galleria, that has cafes and shops. Much more beautiful that our usual malls. They were originally built as such in front of the theatres. You would have a beautiful gallery for the people to walk through or wait in before going to see a play or opera...
Wow. Is everyone still following me??
Ill give you all a break for now... :)) The plan for tomorrow is to go to Baia, which is the lost atlantis of Italy. A town that got submerged in water! We will spend the afternoon in the palace and gardens north of town... After that, on Friday I think we are heading off to Greece! Corfu and Santorini are on the menu :)) As we are really enjoying hostelling, we decided why not keep going a little longer...
Cheers!
So David and I decided that it would be fun to leave Lucy in Rome and go on a backpacking-hosteling adventure. Which has led us to Naples, our first stop. While David has been in a few hostels before this is my first time, and I love it! Having not previously reserved for the hostel, we arrived in Naples and walked to the first recommended spot in our LonelyPlanet Guide. That hostel was fully booked but they recommended another one for us, which lucky for us, had some beds available. We are now staying at Giovannis Hostel, where we have already met some amazing folks (particularly one german girl Carina, and two aussies, Emily and Justin). The hostel is run by an italian man and is helped by Valeria, who speaks perfect english and is hilarious. She gave us a great virtual tour of Naples and pointed out some really neat places to go visit - which were not mentioned in our guides. Yesterday we did a several hour walk around Naples, which is a crazy town!! Tiny roads, sooo many cars and motorbikes (insane drivers going SUPER fast), and not quite as touristy as say Rome or Cinque Terra. You actually get to catch glimpses of people "living" instead of hundreds of tourists... Today we went to Pompei. I hadnt imagined it being to big, but in retrospect it was an entire city that was covered in ash... Ok, lets backtrack a few weeks and see a few pictures...
So a long long way back is Les Calanques, southern france. Which was intended to be a few days of climbing which turned into one day - beautiful area, but slightly too polished rock for our liking. In the picture you see one of the main calanques - which is a bay - that we followed while walking to our climb (which turned out to be a 2 hour hike because David brought us on the sight seeing path as opposed to the direct path - we did get to see more views this way though!)
Before going to les Calanques we had done a road trip to Marseille. The picture below shows one of the two forts that used to protect the port of Marseille.
Now that I think of it... I am not sure I mentioned that I got rid of my hair in Aix en Provence?? It was just well itchy and too hot. So chop chop. See below for the results... (picture taken in Marseille...)
If you remember I did a slight detour to Corsica, where I sadly did not take very many pictures. However you can glimpse the sea and the mountains in the two pictures below. The first picture was taken off the docks before boarding the ferry and the second is the main beach in the town, both of which in Ile Rousse. I had originally taken the ferry from Nice to Bastia, then trained from Bastia to Calvi, took a bus to Calezanna (which is the start of the GR20), walked back to Calvi and took the train to Ile Rousse. All of which to end up in Nice again and take the train to Verona to meet up with David again.
After a night in Verona (NOrthern Italy), David and I left for Arco, north of Lago di Garda and the first day went to do a bit of slab climbing at a very close local crag. Notice that I am climbing with only one shoe as David - whos only duty was to bring the shoes and the quickdraws - left one of my shoes in the van (hopefully the picture isnt too small??). It was still good fun and my barefoot turned out to have quite a bit more friction than expected.
There was this statue on the way to the center of town in Arco, which seemed pretty huge at the time, but that appears to fit Davids size quite suprisingly... His beard sure is getting long! (He finally caved today and shaved! He now looks 10 years younger and not quite as wild...)
After Arco and a quick return to Verona, we headed off to Val di Mello (climbing - hiking area), and slept in the totally isolated little village of Sasso Remmeno. It was as we mentioned earlier a gathering of folks for Sarahs birthday... The first picture is the view from the campsite. Ahhh granite, the best rock ever :)
The first climb that we did in Val di Mello below following the waterfall directly on the right. Only 2 pitches with a very easy finish.
Of course couldnt leave without a group photo (top row Joel, Lua, Melissa ,David, Daniel, Heiko, Andrea, Paolo, Paolo, Farris. Bottom row Elena, Sarah, Me, Angela, Philippe (holding the EuroFreaks Tshirt), Taz)
Daniel, Angela and David enjoying some white wine after an intense climbing day :) Wine is just sooooooo cheap here its unbeliveable! Angela and Heiko live in Trento, close to Arco, so we are likely going to meet up with them later on on our trip. They both are also doing PHDs at the international University in Trento, in computer science... Tempting area for higher education, wouldnt you say?
After all this intense climbing, we left Val di Mello and booted down to the west coast of italy, past Milan. We drove all the way to Genova where we almost took the ferry to Corsica... but decided instead to stay in Italy... So we ended in Vernazza, which is the 4th town in a series of 5 towns of the coast of Italy, known as Cinque Terre. Probably the most english we have heard in this entire trip, yet despite the tourists, remains beautiful and charming.
They cultivate along the sides of the "mountains" (hills i guess). And its incredible how steep it gets! It reminds me of the cultivation of rice in levels that I once saw in Indonesia... 
They have these crazy tracks set up along the lenght of the hill so that a mini "train" can be loaded with the grapes and brought either to the top or the bottom... Now I bet you would get more of a thrill on those rides than any amusement park - assuming you would trust it enough to dare get up on it! You might notice it in the picture below, the white "dot" in the middle is the motor and the drivers seat...
The lemon trees were deliciously tempting and mostly out of reach...
After a few days relaxing in Cinque Terre, off to Rome with a quick stop in Pisa. Yes the tower is still sinking at about 1mm per year... :) Engineers...ppfff cant trust them! Speaking of which, after weeks of attempting to log onto my universitys website to confirm that I have indeed graduated, I finally managed to connect yesterday, and Yes, I am officially done!!! Wooohoo. My convocation was last Saturday, Congratulations to all Systems Design! :)) (I did celebrate: Davids cousin Andrea brought us, while in Rome, to the 40th birthday party of a friend of his. Suprisingly one of the wildest and biggest home parties i have attended, with Djs, lights, dance floor and what seemed like a never ending source of alcohol! We left the party sometime after 2 AM, Andrea, was still going strong, and came back around 6AM. Craziness!) Ok lets get back on track again...
Next stop Rome. Soo many things to see, what a fascinating town! Its an interesting mix of old and "new", ruins, churches, old traditional clothes...
Fancy gelato shops with tons of flavours of yummy goodness...
The colosseum... This side is better preserved than the other because for the longest time they used the stone from the no longer used colosseum to rebuild other buildings. Today it has been partially restored. Apparently the colosseum used to be mostly marble, but the marble was taken away in order to build fancy churches for the Pope. They replaced the marble with "simple rock"... I was really looking forward to seeing "gladiators" that you can take pictures with (well that other tourists can take pictures with). We mostly saw Roman Legionaires with a varying degree of sophisticated costumes... The most hilarious was one with a broom as his helmet.
Of course a visit to Rome would not be complete without visiting the Trevi fountain... I cossed a coin into the fountain to insure that I would "return to Rome" again...
Davids uncle Stefano brought us on a car ride around Rome which included the top of one of Romes 7 hills from which we had a marvellous panoramic view of the city. Can you spot the colosseum in the picture?
Now we move on to Naples... One of the churches here in the picture below... though the important part is all the stripped blue and white ribbons which currently hang on many streets. Naples has made it to Seria A, which is the best Football (Soccer) League in Italia! Woohoo.
Today a visit to Pompei, where we past this very tempting fresh lemonade and orange juice stand. They had lemons that were humongous!!! There is something fishy going on...
One of the many pompei pictures... this one is particularly nice because you can see Vesuvius in the background. We have decided not to go up on the crater, as we have heard not so exciting stories from some of the people at the hostel. We therefore made sure to have a good look from afar today. It is also quite expensive to go see it...
Ok, below is slightly creepy... This man appearantly died suffocated by the ash... Probably screaming or gasping for air as his mouth was open. The bodies they found in Pompei were filled with liquid cement to fill the cavities that were preserved in the ashes... Which is why we can now see them today.
Another not so appealing picture below, taking in Naples during our walk along the docks. It is a trippe and cow head and fish stand... Luckily, the cow head, in the middle of the picture, isnt too obvious... We do have a close up for any that are interested! :)
A picture with our new friends :) Josh, Carina, David, Emily and Justin. In the galleria, that has cafes and shops. Much more beautiful that our usual malls. They were originally built as such in front of the theatres. You would have a beautiful gallery for the people to walk through or wait in before going to see a play or opera...
Wow. Is everyone still following me??
Ill give you all a break for now... :)) The plan for tomorrow is to go to Baia, which is the lost atlantis of Italy. A town that got submerged in water! We will spend the afternoon in the palace and gardens north of town... After that, on Friday I think we are heading off to Greece! Corfu and Santorini are on the menu :)) As we are really enjoying hostelling, we decided why not keep going a little longer...
Cheers!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Beautiful Cinque Terra
So before we left Canada several people sat us down and said "When you're in Italy you have to go to this Cinque Terra" so of course we found time for it. It's quite a nice place. We just finished the hike today. Nice hike with plenty of good views. Swimming afterwards was nice. The water is warm. We kinda want to go for a swim/kayak but are burdened by our passports and other documents. We are considering buying a watertight case and storing stuff in there (attached to our legs while we go adventure swimming :)). We'll see.
Ah but now an exciting climbing backflash. After leaving Verona, Emilie and I headed out to Val Di Mello. A beautiful granite vally with more granite slab than you can shake a stick at. I didn't try but can only assume. It's alot of Granite. We met a ton of really nice people from rockclimbing.com as they had all shown up to bid farwell to a friend. The trip in was a bit of an ordeal as the main road was closed so we had to detour over a mountain. Poor lucy heated up the engine coming up and the breaks going down. I should get those things checked before we head back into the Alps. We arrived at night and quickly set up our Lucy to sleep. The following morning, Taz, Ferris (of fontainbleau fame) Emilie and I went to climb a simple two pitch slab/crack (emphasis on the slab). Ferris climbed a wee bit slow and due to the ease of the second pitch, Emilie and I finished at the same time as they did. We rapped off while Taz and Ferris looked for the walkoff. While waiting I decided it would be fun to try this slab to the right of the route we were on. Couldn't be that hard... could it? (Note: all squemish readers and parents please stop reading. Picture butterflys and flowers and scroll down a paragragh)
The first clip was a stretch. The good feet were just out of reach from the clip but I was able to stretch and get it clipped. The second clip was about 2 meters off of the first bolt. I padded up tentitively with nothing but nubbins and divots to stand on. I kinda lunged for the second bolt with the draw and got it cliped. Yee haw. A smart man may have backed off at this point. Me... I never claimed to be smart. The third bolt was at least three meters above the second bolt. Sigh... step up to the good feet. look around. Divots... nubbins. Man this sucks. Step up tentitively... foot slips... walk back walk back... rope weights phew. Ok lets try this again. I hauled up the rope to get back to the second bolt. Ok let's try this again. Up to the good feet. Emilie murmers encouragement from below. The world slows down. I step onto my right foot... it holds. Up to the left foot... it holds. My hands massage the rock searching for something, anything. Another nubbin... breath... step up. shit... Balance.. oh shit... lean... oh shit... falling... step back... free fall... pain. "Ahhhh...." I would have exclaimed if not for the draw in my mouth ment for the third bolt. Instead I took it out and ask Emilie to lower me the rest of the way to the ground. Turns out I had lost balance during the fall and cracked my elbow and hip into the slab as I fell. Sigh. I used a side anchor to retrieve the two draws. No perminant damage to my body. I guess I learnt the lesson not to climb 5.11a/b run out slab =) I have dreamt of getting back onto that climb and probably will if we go back into the area. This time I'll do it on top rope.
The rest of the evening was spent drinking wine in the local pub. Mmmm wine. The next day Emilie and I climbed and nice 6 pitch well bolted slab routed. There was a really slow party on the route so it took a while. Emilie lead the crux pitch. A nice 5.10a slab pitch. That evening Emilie continued her utter dominance of Carcassone and wasted Me, Heiko and Angela. (I do have to say that she got creamed the first game...)
On monday morning Emilie and I headed to a small sport crag (essentially a MASSIVE boulder with 40m routes on it). Emilie unfortunately strained her left ankle during a routine fall on the first climb we did. Again no permenant damage to the ankle and we were able to climb 2 more routes before it started to rain. After those two routes it started to rain and we headed back towards the sea to rest our bruised and battered bodies.
Ok i am taking over from David for the last few lines... For any that worry my ankle appears to be back to normal after a few days of stiffeness! It will teach me to do a practice fall! Sheesh. This has meant however that David and I decided not to head to corsica to do the GR20. After all that fuss, i know i know! We will make it uip later in the trip by doing the Tour du Mont Blanc! Cinque Terre is this beautifully preserved set of 5 villages within 10 km walk of each other. (Which as david mentioned earlier, we hiked this morning. Following Rick Steeves advice about a Tough HIke, we went prepared with hiking boots and poles, which....really.... werent neceessary :) ) We finished the hike with our traditional italian lunch, cheese, foccacia, proscuitto di Parma, fresh cherries and appricots. Of course we also treated ourselves to yummy GElato and a nice swim in the warm mediteranean. Oh.... other cool thing here, there are TONS of lemon trees. David has consented to collect a few for me, which we have been eating secretely in lucy. hehehe...
THe plan now is to head to Roma! See you there.... Pictures to come soon :)
Ah but now an exciting climbing backflash. After leaving Verona, Emilie and I headed out to Val Di Mello. A beautiful granite vally with more granite slab than you can shake a stick at. I didn't try but can only assume. It's alot of Granite. We met a ton of really nice people from rockclimbing.com as they had all shown up to bid farwell to a friend. The trip in was a bit of an ordeal as the main road was closed so we had to detour over a mountain. Poor lucy heated up the engine coming up and the breaks going down. I should get those things checked before we head back into the Alps. We arrived at night and quickly set up our Lucy to sleep. The following morning, Taz, Ferris (of fontainbleau fame) Emilie and I went to climb a simple two pitch slab/crack (emphasis on the slab). Ferris climbed a wee bit slow and due to the ease of the second pitch, Emilie and I finished at the same time as they did. We rapped off while Taz and Ferris looked for the walkoff. While waiting I decided it would be fun to try this slab to the right of the route we were on. Couldn't be that hard... could it? (Note: all squemish readers and parents please stop reading. Picture butterflys and flowers and scroll down a paragragh)
The first clip was a stretch. The good feet were just out of reach from the clip but I was able to stretch and get it clipped. The second clip was about 2 meters off of the first bolt. I padded up tentitively with nothing but nubbins and divots to stand on. I kinda lunged for the second bolt with the draw and got it cliped. Yee haw. A smart man may have backed off at this point. Me... I never claimed to be smart. The third bolt was at least three meters above the second bolt. Sigh... step up to the good feet. look around. Divots... nubbins. Man this sucks. Step up tentitively... foot slips... walk back walk back... rope weights phew. Ok lets try this again. I hauled up the rope to get back to the second bolt. Ok let's try this again. Up to the good feet. Emilie murmers encouragement from below. The world slows down. I step onto my right foot... it holds. Up to the left foot... it holds. My hands massage the rock searching for something, anything. Another nubbin... breath... step up. shit... Balance.. oh shit... lean... oh shit... falling... step back... free fall... pain. "Ahhhh...." I would have exclaimed if not for the draw in my mouth ment for the third bolt. Instead I took it out and ask Emilie to lower me the rest of the way to the ground. Turns out I had lost balance during the fall and cracked my elbow and hip into the slab as I fell. Sigh. I used a side anchor to retrieve the two draws. No perminant damage to my body. I guess I learnt the lesson not to climb 5.11a/b run out slab =) I have dreamt of getting back onto that climb and probably will if we go back into the area. This time I'll do it on top rope.
The rest of the evening was spent drinking wine in the local pub. Mmmm wine. The next day Emilie and I climbed and nice 6 pitch well bolted slab routed. There was a really slow party on the route so it took a while. Emilie lead the crux pitch. A nice 5.10a slab pitch. That evening Emilie continued her utter dominance of Carcassone and wasted Me, Heiko and Angela. (I do have to say that she got creamed the first game...)
On monday morning Emilie and I headed to a small sport crag (essentially a MASSIVE boulder with 40m routes on it). Emilie unfortunately strained her left ankle during a routine fall on the first climb we did. Again no permenant damage to the ankle and we were able to climb 2 more routes before it started to rain. After those two routes it started to rain and we headed back towards the sea to rest our bruised and battered bodies.
Ok i am taking over from David for the last few lines... For any that worry my ankle appears to be back to normal after a few days of stiffeness! It will teach me to do a practice fall! Sheesh. This has meant however that David and I decided not to head to corsica to do the GR20. After all that fuss, i know i know! We will make it uip later in the trip by doing the Tour du Mont Blanc! Cinque Terre is this beautifully preserved set of 5 villages within 10 km walk of each other. (Which as david mentioned earlier, we hiked this morning. Following Rick Steeves advice about a Tough HIke, we went prepared with hiking boots and poles, which....really.... werent neceessary :) ) We finished the hike with our traditional italian lunch, cheese, foccacia, proscuitto di Parma, fresh cherries and appricots. Of course we also treated ourselves to yummy GElato and a nice swim in the warm mediteranean. Oh.... other cool thing here, there are TONS of lemon trees. David has consented to collect a few for me, which we have been eating secretely in lucy. hehehe...
THe plan now is to head to Roma! See you there.... Pictures to come soon :)
Friday, June 8, 2007
Buongiorno Tutti il Mondo!
Adesso, noi siamo a Verona, la città de Romeo e Guilette. This past couple of weeks have been kinda crazy. Emilie and I split paths for a few days as she went to check out a great hike on Corsica, while I went off to Verona to spend some time with some family. Emilie decided that she wasn't comfortable doing the hike (hardest in Europe 170km) alone and therefore came and joined me in Verona last Sunday. It had been raining pretty consistantly on me in Verona, but the sun did come out on Sunday and I was able to get out climbing on a local crag (dolomite) it was quite a nice crag. I found some Italians to climb with as Emilie was not going to arrive until later in the evening. My cousin and uncle watched as I led a 5.9 and followed a 5.10c overhang. The rock was nice and all the climbs had a nice warmup before reaching the crux. I didn't climb long as my cousin and uncle didn't want to try. It was fun though and I met some really nice Italians. I gave them my e-mail so maybe in the next few years we will be hosting some Italians in Canada.
Emilie missed her train in Milano (though she will claim it's not her fault... we all know better) so we ended up waiting for about 30 minutes at the train station. I was convinced that she had missed her stop because she fell asleep. But actually the train from Nice to Milano was late so she had to catch the next train from Milano to Verona. After her arrival we went back to my uncle's place and despite my best Italian argueing, I was cowed into sleeping on their bed. Sigh. Poor cousin, gives up her bed when I arrived, then when Emilie arrived was forced to sleep on the floor. Note to everybody, have a guest bedroom if you are super nice and want to have your guests sleep on something comfortable.
The next day it rained more. Emilie and I went back to the crag that I had been at the day before and squished some snails. Escargot anybody? We also practiced some self rescue techniques and now are both pretty proficient at escaping the belay. Best be careful to not piss eachother off now or we could find ourselves dangling 100feet off the deck while the other heads back to Canada.
Enough of this rain, we decided, fed up with it. So we left Verona for sunny Arco. Where of course it rained somemore. We aimed our furgonchino (little van) at the nearest slab and checked out the local limeslab. The sun was amazingly shining at this point. So Emilie and I drove up the road... saw the sign... 1.9m. Shit... lucy is wider than that. Sigh... park. Walk. Get to cliff... "Hey... where's my shoe? You forgot one of my shoes!" heh heh... oops. Emilie is a great barefoot climber. Slab with one barefoot is skillful... painful yet skillful. I'm sure she is happier that I opened more doors for her by teaching her the art of one shoe climbing. The thunder that scared all the woosy German climbers away was too little to scare us away from the 5.8 and 5.9 slab we climbed. Of course we got drenched on the way back to the car.
The following day we headed off to the popular Arco crag called Massone. Initially we were thinking of climbing a 1600foot climb but the iffy weather sent us cragging instead. The crag was nice but the easy climbs were pretty polished. We ended up sending a 5.7, 5.9, 5.10a and a 5.10b. It was the first 10b I have ever lead. Emilie got a few airmiles as I took a couple whips on the second bolt... "Watch the third clip" the guide book had said. The jubaliation of our ascents translated into Gelato. Mmmmm Gelato. Cheap, yummy, and mmmm mmmm good. "Heavenly goodness" says Emilie. Emilie is pretty certain she has found her Promised Land.
Speaking of Promised Land's, Emilie and I went to climb at Terra Promessa the following day. The area's easiest climb was a 10a and quickly went up from there. However, today was the day to push ourselves. We quickly dispatched the local 10a and watched as a tiny waif of a girl climbed 3 10b/c in the time it took us to climb one. Turns out she is the world youth champion warming up for some of the harder climbs. Pretty impressive. After the 10a Emilie and I toproped some of the more difficult climbs that shared the anchor. Following this I led (with a few rests) a really nice 10b corner climb. 15m of laybacking followed by a 3 m crimpy crux. Best route I've climbed so far. Emilie toperoped it twice in succession and I climbed it clean on toprope. When we come back in august, I will send it clean on lead. Following this, Emilie lead a 10b. She bravely lead the difficult climb even when it started to rain on her. I didn't follow it but instead choose a 10a traverse. It turned out to be harder to clean than to climb. Lesson learned, make Emilie follow me on any traverse I do.
After another hard climbing day we are taking a rest day in Verona. Emilie is still looking for her first gelato of the day. Tonight we leave for Val de Mello (sp???)
Arivaderci
Emilie missed her train in Milano (though she will claim it's not her fault... we all know better) so we ended up waiting for about 30 minutes at the train station. I was convinced that she had missed her stop because she fell asleep. But actually the train from Nice to Milano was late so she had to catch the next train from Milano to Verona. After her arrival we went back to my uncle's place and despite my best Italian argueing, I was cowed into sleeping on their bed. Sigh. Poor cousin, gives up her bed when I arrived, then when Emilie arrived was forced to sleep on the floor. Note to everybody, have a guest bedroom if you are super nice and want to have your guests sleep on something comfortable.
The next day it rained more. Emilie and I went back to the crag that I had been at the day before and squished some snails. Escargot anybody? We also practiced some self rescue techniques and now are both pretty proficient at escaping the belay. Best be careful to not piss eachother off now or we could find ourselves dangling 100feet off the deck while the other heads back to Canada.
Enough of this rain, we decided, fed up with it. So we left Verona for sunny Arco. Where of course it rained somemore. We aimed our furgonchino (little van) at the nearest slab and checked out the local limeslab. The sun was amazingly shining at this point. So Emilie and I drove up the road... saw the sign... 1.9m. Shit... lucy is wider than that. Sigh... park. Walk. Get to cliff... "Hey... where's my shoe? You forgot one of my shoes!" heh heh... oops. Emilie is a great barefoot climber. Slab with one barefoot is skillful... painful yet skillful. I'm sure she is happier that I opened more doors for her by teaching her the art of one shoe climbing. The thunder that scared all the woosy German climbers away was too little to scare us away from the 5.8 and 5.9 slab we climbed. Of course we got drenched on the way back to the car.
The following day we headed off to the popular Arco crag called Massone. Initially we were thinking of climbing a 1600foot climb but the iffy weather sent us cragging instead. The crag was nice but the easy climbs were pretty polished. We ended up sending a 5.7, 5.9, 5.10a and a 5.10b. It was the first 10b I have ever lead. Emilie got a few airmiles as I took a couple whips on the second bolt... "Watch the third clip" the guide book had said. The jubaliation of our ascents translated into Gelato. Mmmmm Gelato. Cheap, yummy, and mmmm mmmm good. "Heavenly goodness" says Emilie. Emilie is pretty certain she has found her Promised Land.
Speaking of Promised Land's, Emilie and I went to climb at Terra Promessa the following day. The area's easiest climb was a 10a and quickly went up from there. However, today was the day to push ourselves. We quickly dispatched the local 10a and watched as a tiny waif of a girl climbed 3 10b/c in the time it took us to climb one. Turns out she is the world youth champion warming up for some of the harder climbs. Pretty impressive. After the 10a Emilie and I toproped some of the more difficult climbs that shared the anchor. Following this I led (with a few rests) a really nice 10b corner climb. 15m of laybacking followed by a 3 m crimpy crux. Best route I've climbed so far. Emilie toperoped it twice in succession and I climbed it clean on toprope. When we come back in august, I will send it clean on lead. Following this, Emilie lead a 10b. She bravely lead the difficult climb even when it started to rain on her. I didn't follow it but instead choose a 10a traverse. It turned out to be harder to clean than to climb. Lesson learned, make Emilie follow me on any traverse I do.
After another hard climbing day we are taking a rest day in Verona. Emilie is still looking for her first gelato of the day. Tonight we leave for Val de Mello (sp???)
Arivaderci
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