The infamous Aig Goloritz on Sardinia
"The Goloritz pinnacle is not the place to be in an electric storm. All of a sudden whoosh lightning hit the top of the spire 30 metres from me, I could not reverse and decided to go onward to the lower off very close to where the lightning struck it was easy climbing but I was to put it bluntly (s)hitting myself"
Aig Goloritz from the clifftop footpath.
Several years ago I was lucky enough to do ‘Sole Incantatrare’ a 6/7 pitch 3*** 6c on the Aig Goloritz in Sardinia.
It starts with a 6k walk down to the sea and finishes with a strenuous walk back up that route.
To this date I still think it is the best bolted euro route I have ever done in probably the best location I have ever climbed in.
So when we planned to visit the island again it was only natural that another route on the Goloritz pinnacle would be on the agenda.
I teamed up with Alan Walmsley, after a couple of days warm up we decided to go for the main event, the route we had chosen was called ‘Sinfonia del Mulini a Vento’ an 8 pitch 3*** 6a,6a,5b,6a+,6b,5a,6b+6a. The big difference was that on this route the bolts had been chopped. Now it has to be done on traditional gear accordingly the Rockfax guide graded it E2 5c.
Any route on the tower is a big day out and very popular so to ensure we were there first we got up at 05.00 only to find it was raining heavily, we made a decision to go, have a look, after we had driving 1hr it was still raining so we reluctantly turned back.
The 5 o’clock start was repeated the next morning this time it was dry so after the 6km walk in we found ourselves starting the first pitch around 8 o’clock. The intro pitch was given 6a, very polished, very tricky, we used nuts to back up some old in situ pegs. The second pitch was another 6a, Alan led this again it was awkward, the tell tale slings on pegs made it obvious that many people aid this pitch. The 3rd pitch was easier & led to an off width chimney (4th pitch) this is one of the crux’s graded 6a+ and had very little gear on it apart from a couple of pegs after the main difficulties, a very bold pitch.
On the belay at the top of the chimney the heavens opened leaving me with a soaking wet 6b pitch, this was duly aided, on pegs and nuts, it took us onto a traverse line back to the centre of the main face.
Once on the main face we could see the extent of the massive storm and heavy rain just to the north luckily we were just on the southern edge of it, the wind seemed to be keeping it away from us.
I was now faced with climbing the crux 6b+ pitch on wet rock, luckily it was a crack that took nuts to back up the in situ pegs, during this pitch the weather deteriated. It started thundering. The Goloritz pinnacle is not the place to be in an electric storm, I brought Alan up, it was looking very menacing now, Should we turn back, we were so close with only one 6a pitch to do so I set off at a rate of knots. Half way up the pitch Alan shouted up that the storm had changed direction and was now coming towards us, it was raining on us now but 2 hundred yards away we could see the rain was torrential.
All of a sudden whoosh lightning hit the top of the spire 30 metres from me, I could not reverse and decided to go onward to the lower off very close to where the lightning struck it was easy climbing but I was to put it bluntly (s)hitting myself.
I got to the lower off tried one of the 2 ropes through and gratefully lowered off, I was a bit shaken so Alan took the lead on the abseil, with 2 massive 60 metre raps we were down on the ground to great relief.
Big thanks to Alan for keeping cool in difficult situations.......