woohoo the dollies!!!!! (Dolomites)

Ever since Paula & I started to develop the skills and experience to climb in more adventurous environments (mountains, multi pitch) the Dollies appeared on our radar and took our hearts, with its mixture of beautiful settings, familiar limestone like rock, and endless possibilities from moderate to extreme.

It feels a bit like returning, well not quite home, but somewhere cherised as we returned for our third time. This time without a deadline for a return flight home and also planning to meet up with some friends from the UK (Pilar & Julian) who were coming out for a week.

Both Paula and I were psyched to come back and meet up with some friends after 3 months in the van together ;-)

We started in some familiar areas at Cinque Torri, then Sella Towers and Piz Ciavazes, initially seeming to spend our days with our heads in the clouds, a little more altitude and the mountain weather.

Some memorable routes included Finlandia at Cinque Torri, Vintanzer on Sella Tower 3, Schubert and then Roberta 83 on Piz.

Clear crisp skies after days of storms, moon out views from our wild camp spot at Cinque torri

Finlandia

Brilliant to see Julian and Pilar for a week

ciao ciao Valle dell’Orco, missing you already!!!

As a climber I've always dreamed of travelling to the US and climbing on the amazing granite in Yosemite and Tuolumne. The closest I've got to this is probably the Granite in Chamonix like the South face of the Aig du Midi and areas around the Envers Hut. But most of the climbing I did there was not (yet) on splitter cracks.

We kind of new we didn't have the skills yet when we were there, but our climbing has developed well albeit slowly and after trying some classics in Millstone in the Peak District last year and having some moderate success, the idea of going to Valle dell'Orco for some proper granite splitters was enticing.

It's a beautiful valley in northwestern Italy in the Gran Paradiso National Park. A beautiful alpine valley with snow capped 4000m range at one end, thick forest, gushing waterfalls, a noisy river, and of course some fabulous Granite feeding us a daily diet of natural lines, mainly some proper jamming Cracks, beautiful Dihedrals, and run-out friction climbing, all making me admire those masters dancing up the granite walls of yosemite even more.

The valley was blissfully quiet,…and stunning,...and full of interesting routes, and you can wild camp easily near the cool glacier fed river, having not climbed in the US yet this was a great way to develop our skills for this style.

We will be back for more...Sergent & Caporal...

I read this blog before travelling, rather than repeat similar content have a read if your planning a trip

http://travelswithrockboots.blogspot.ch/2014/07/orco.html

Fun week in Annot!!

I'd first heard about Annot when climbing with Alan Carne a few years ago in Verdon, he'd mentioned he was off to a climbing festival there run by a friend. I remember hearing "Trad" & "Cracks" and curiosity got the better of me reading an article he wrote here.

This stayed in my memory and we thought we'd take a trip to visit.

Annot was a lovely destination, again in Provence, perfect for those travelling and living in a van with all the things we need.

The climbing is all accessed via a short walk across the village train tracks and up through forrest on a hill. It's all cool sandstone, with some lovely crack & friction climbing, definitely worth a visit for those who like splitters or offwidths or want a change from all the limestone, or like me, need to go to crack school.


Low down you have huge boulders mainly bolted as sport routes and a lot of friction climbing (which takes a moment to get back into after Limestone), and the higher you go you get increasingly larger crags full of splitters and offwidths which are not bolted and protectable using natural pro.

We bought the topo from the local newsagent, and set off. The Topo's are fine once you get a hang for the area, but at first it was not straight forward finding our way around. Thankfully we bumped into some others who had spent a few days getting orientated (thanks to Ronny & Kathy Ek!!), and then those who we're pictured in the guidebook (Mariana Jagercikova), and they helped us find the areas we were looking for.

It's not a large venue, but well worth a visit with cracks from equivilent VS/HVS upto mid/higher level E grades. We got about as far as E1, so will have to return.

It was a great week, brilliant contract to Verdon, and perfect to get our heads around some crack and friction climbing before heading to Valle dell Orco, and later Grimsel.

After Annot we took a brief detour down to the Med for some sun and a little more climbing on the red granite around L'estreal.

#vanlife

...moments from #vanlife, we love our van and our #vanlife