Author Topic: A fistfull of Euros  (Read 1832 times)

midweekmountain

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A fistfull of Euros
« on: 18:52:48, 27/09/10 »
A torrid account of a half hearted attempt at mountaineering in the Dolomites

This story started off in Glencoe, with the superb winter conditions we had virtually ticked Scotland so the question was what are you going to do next.


Finlandia a superb VII on Cinque Torre

The answer was the West Ridge of the Salbischijen allegedly the best mountaineering Ridge in the world, the weeks came & our alpine slot went and then suddenly it was August, what are we going to do now?? Well somehow we got an invite to meet some friends & ended up emerging like blinking owls into the blinding sunshine outside Venice’s Maro polo airport en route for the Cortina in the Dolomites.

What is it with toilet cleaners & camp site attendant's, we had found the best camp site in the area run by the most miserable pair of morons in Europe. Added to this we had been limited to 22kgs luggage so we were in tiny tents amidst a full campsite of Germans in flash campers & caravans. How could things get any worse? We needed to go into Cortine to buy some essentials, what’s that smell says I, that be money says Dave, we find ourselves in a designer shopping centre aimed at the wealthiest people in Europe, dedicated to removing euros from our pockets. The place was however surprisingly easy on the eye and made queuing at the cheese counter a whole new experience as we jostled for position amidst a throng of blond amazons.



That night we had a torrential thunder storm, but amazingly we awake to clear blue skies so it was an early start up to the Cinque Torre a low level klettergarten with a mass of great climbs on it, ideal for less than perfect conditions

We get the guidebook wrong, looking for a warm up grade V route we got onto a VII, in fact we thought it was hard for a seven in parts, but it was good to get our first route under our belts.
The next day we decided to have a go at a grade VI route on a West Face of Piccolo  Laguzuoi which was a mistake, we started at 06.00 and our fingers were freezing up until we got onto the 4th pitch & the sun found us. Our 22kgs of luggage allowance could not cope with the temps here.

That night the rest of our friends turned up & the campsite suddenly became very sociable.

Unfortunately the weather had not read the script & remained unsettled, even on the good days we were limited to the sunny South Faces or if the weather was too poor we ended up on low level sports crags in the valley.



After a week or so we decided to go up to one of the huts & do the classic Grade VI Comici Route on the Torre Diavolo. It was a Sunday night, as we arrived at the Hut a team of drunken krauts staggered down the hut steps to the tune of an equally drunk female accordion player dressed in a bright orange dress & taking requests on the balcony above. We quickly side stepped the swaying bodies & ducked under the flailing sticks as we made our way up the final steps to the hut. It was surreal the place appeared to be run by German women dressed in traditional corseted dresses & everyone was three parts to the wind. The accordion player wheeled  & staggered about then nodded in the direction of the reception, in we went.
The Gaffer behind the counter [censored] us for walking in with our outdoor shoes on, then bringing our rucksacks in. So we went back & put these things right before going back for another earbending session, By now I realised Dave was in his element sheepishly staring down the front of her ample cleavage as we got ticked off for arriving without booking then for something I did not quite understand.
I was still a quivering wreck as we got sent to the loft, the only spare places in the hut, with lesst than 2 foot of headroom, while Dave was keen to back downstairs for round two.

That night it tipped it down & we wake to find the cloud in, thankfully the was no sign of the gaffer from the night before so we were allowed to dawdle over breakfast, The Comici was not on today so we decided to try and do a much easier route on a summit close to the hut, the problem was finding it in the mist. We left the hut, then came back then finally gritted our teeth went for the South Face of the Torre Wendt an easy Grade IV route of about 8 pitches.
Eventually the cloud cleared & gave us stunning views of the surrounding spires, when we got back to the vally we found we were the only team to do anything on the day.

We had managed to do seven big mountain routes several walks & several sport climbing days, it certainly wasn’t up to the standard of the West Ridge but we had a laugh & the Chuckles Brothers only charged us 7 euros per night, amazing value for the facilities on offer.

More Dolomite Photos at:-

http://yorkclimbers.com/photo/albums/dolomites-1
« Last Edit: 09:12:34, 28/09/10 by midweekmountain »

 

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