As I mentioned in the
end of my last post I'm currently in Finale Ligure on the North-West
Italian coast. I had heard from friends that the climbing here was
good and it was kind of on route from Dolomites/Arco to Ceuse. The
guidebook for the area (Andrea Gallo 2007 Italian with German and
English text) is a real tomb, it's got over 2000 routes in it!
Finalborgo the old part
of Finale town is a beautiful historic old walled Italian town
complete with narrow pedestrianised cobbled streets, a castle and of
course fantastic pizza, coffee and gelateria (ice cream)! I can
recommend the Castello pizzeria, Bar Central for ice cream and
Sbuccia cafe for coffee, smoothie and fast free wifi. The new part of
the town Finale Marina has got beaches and the usual seaside antics:
difficult parking and sun burnt holiday goer's.
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| Entrance to the old town Finalborgo |
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| Refuelling with great coffee and smoothie wifi in cafe Sbuccia |
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| Cooling down! |
Almost all the crags
are nestled up in the densely wooded and wildly vegetated hills above
the town, finding the crag and the correct sector can take a bit of
trial and error.
For the first few night
we stayed up in Case Valle, from here we could walk down into town
and access about nine different crags. Unfortunately most of the
crags faced south and climbing became unbearably hot after
mid-morning. This time of year (June) the temperature is mostly
around 30 degrees C, dropping down to low 20's in the night. Climbing
in the shade is ok, as long as there's a breeze. The guidebook
recommends the best time to visit is Easter and October time although
climbing could easily happen all winter.
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| Multipitch in the densely wooded Case Valle |
The highlight of the
crags we visited in the Case Valle was Grotta Dell 'Edera. This was
an open-air cylindrical climbing arena accessible via a underground
cave! It's not only an amazing situation, the climbing was also
fantastic; steep tufa lines and intricate wall climbing on deep
pockets. I climbed Per Uscire Dalle Tenebre 6c+ and Lubna 7b, both
were fantastic. Don't take my word for it, check out the photos!
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| Upside down tufatastic climbing on Uscire Dalle Tenbre 6c+ |
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| Amazing climbing on Lubna 7b |
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| Lowering off Lubna |
After a rest day
catching up on work and wifi in an awesome little back street cafe in
town we moved camp over to Monte Cucco where I had heard there was a
free campsite and NW facing crags. The free campsite turned out to be
an old abandoned campsite which is now open to all. On the first
evening I managed to sweat my way up a silly steep and spicily bolted
6c in 29 degree C perfectly still muggy air.
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| Hot and sweaty climbing in Monte Cucco |
The next day conditions
were much better, a nice cool breeze made for enjoyable climbing, We
headed over to sector Fenia o Anfiteatro which turned out to be a
stunning 40m ish slightly overhanging limestone wall, splattered with
deep pockets. Chris and I climbed Zambrink 6c, Cianbalaur 7a,
Megahommu 7a+/b and Belin Double 7b. All were 30m+ of steep pocket
pulling enjoyment.
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| Jen climbing in Sector Fenia o Anfiteatro in Monte Cutto |
The guidebook seemed to
suggest that the grading at Finale was on the tough side due to the
latter adoption of the french grades, I would say this is true on the
easier routes (6c and below), we though the routes given 7a and
above were more correctly graded, presumably since they were put up
later. Although maybe still not holiday ticks!
Now for a rest day
before heading to Ceuse at the weekend. I'm looking forward to being
back in France and my first ever visit to the 'best crag in the
world'!