Dolomites

The most recent destination on our trip was the Dolomites, where we met up with Dave Chapman, Pete Rhodes and a couple of their friends. This is another climbing-based post. In summary, the routes are long and follow some spectacular lines. If you are scared of heights, stop reading now...

The Dolomites


The Dolomites are a region of dramatic limestone peaks at the Eastern end of the Alps, on the Italian-Austrian border. Centred around the resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo, the area thrives on tourism, with skiing and spas in the winter and hiking, cycling (road bikes on the steep mountain passes, mountain bikes on the grassy pistes) in the summer. Although Italian now, it was part of Austro-Hungary until the First World War and has retained much Austrian influence. Road signs indicate directions in both German and Italian, and restaurants sell hot-dog-sausage pizzas.

Spigolo Giallo


The highlight of the trip was climbing the Spigolo Giallo (300 m, UIAA VI+, E1 5b), following a line up the edge of Cima Piccola of the Tre Cime de Lavaredo. In climbing jargon, an 'exposed' position is one where you find yourself in an airy position, with a real sense of how high up you are. When, after beginning up a corner and a face, the line finally traversed out onto the edge of the tower, the exposure was fantastic.


The photo shows a mountain hut at the foot of the tower. It was a busy, sunny day and the tourists were like ants, strung out in a line as they marched along the path. They were unlike ants in that they only had 4 limbs, and no chitinous exoskeleton. And none were carrying anything like their own body weight.

Further up, the positions, the rock and the moves were excellent and the route was a joy to climb.


We topped out at about 16:30hrs, 7 hours after we began climbing and 9 hours after leaving the car.


Marmolada

The security of settled weather was a definite factor in the enjoyment of the Spigolo Giallo experience. During the previous week, it had rained daily and we had been reduced to snatching routes between showers. Pete and Dave had only this week in Italy and were anxious to climb their target route (Don Quixote on the south face of the Marmolada, 800m, UIAA VI, HVS 5a), so they lacked the luxury of being able to wait for the sun. We also fancied Don Quixote and so with only clouds forecast, the four of us drove west across the mountain passes, ready to give it a try the following day. As was normal, Gemma and I would sleep in the van, while Pete and Dave took the spare room.


The Marmolada is the highest mountain in the Dolomites, with a glaciated north face and steep rocky south face. The bottom of the route was a three hour uphill hike from the parking. The guidebook, whose estimated climbing times are typically optimistic, said the route would take eight hours to climb. At the top, it was possible to walk to a cable car station that would give you a ride back down to the valley. Missing the cable car would mean descent via a three hour trudge across the glacier. Calculating backwards from the time of the last cable car, we set our alarms for 03:00hrs.


We made good time on the hike, but on the climbing we found that we were much too slow. The moves were easy, but the rock was broken and irregular and the route was complicated. Much time was wasted trying to decide if we were in the right place and which roof was the right one. Furthermore, the rock was running with wet streaks from the previous rains and clouds were piling up against the peaks on the horizon. With Dave and Pete a couple of pitches ahead of us, and about 250 m up, I climbed a crack that seemed harder than expected and ended up in a dead-end beneath a roof, off-route. Gemm climbed up to join me, we looked at the time and how far we still had to go, and decided to bail from the route.


It took us a further two hours to abseil back down the cliff and by the time we reached the van it had already been a twelve hour day. We took this photo of Dave and Pete as we left the valley. They were still some way from the top and the cable car was due to stop running in an hour. At 21:00hrs, following intermittent phone contact, we picked them up at the bottom of the glacier descent path, having completed the route and walked down the other side. A good effort.

Vajolet towers

We also climbed numerous shorter and less-commiting routes. The Cinque Torri area, in particular, was like playground. Gemm made short work of the crux pitch of Via Finlandia (100 m, UIAA VII-, E2 5c).

Our final route was the SW Arete on the Torre Delago of the Vajolet towers (160 m, UIAA IV+, S 4b). The climbing was much easier but the exposure was immense.


Most enjoyably, the top of the tower had a flat ledge where we lunched, watching clouds pass by beneath us.


Alps

We have just over a week left of the trip now. We are currently in the Swiss Alps and will hopefully climb something snowy before we have to come back.

Croatia Swarm

Croatia's warm; it's about 30 degrees here each day. This may not be breaking any records, but the sun is fierce and it feels significantly hotter from behind the windscreen. The interior temperature of the van hit 50 degrees when we parked without shade one afternoon. Our cheese marinades in its own oily sweat and we suck the coatings of chocolate biscuits from their wrappers. At night we have to sleep upon the sheets with the van door open.

Each summer, much of eastern Europe swarms to the Adriatic coast, along with Italians, Austrians and Germans. We visited Dubrovnik midweek, but it was still rammed. People come to explore the old-town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the exceptional preservation of the architecture within the thick city walls. The buildings are crammed tightly together, forming a maze of narrow, shaded alleyways.


Most of the alleyways lead down to the main street, the Stradun. There are restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops, and thousands of tourists eating, drinking and taking thousands of photos of pillars, shutters, statues and roofs.


Second only in number to the tourists are the pigeons. As we sat in a cafe, someone threw down some food and hundreds descended from their various ornate perches in a feeding frenzy, becoming a dirty, thick, coo-ing mass between the coffee tables and the parasols.


Perhaps it is the pigeons that are in charge in Dubrovnik, and the people exist just to feed and entertain them. This pecking order is sickeningly illustrated when you see people from around the world queueing up to drink from the pigeons' bidet.


Unless you are really into old churches, the main attraction of Dubrovnik is the atmosphere of the city itself. The Franciscan Monastery has a gargoyle's head sticking out of the wall. It was supposedly a big test of masculinity for Dubrovnik's men to be able to balance upon it, arms spread wide, and from time to time tourists would have a try. Naturally, Gemma aced it and put everyone else to shame.


The Adriatic sea is Croatia biggest draw, and the following day we did a sea kayaking tour. The highlight was swimming into a cave with a partially-submerged entrance. In the dark of the cave, the water formed a sparkling floor of glowing turquoise-blue, lit from beneath by sunlight reflected from the white sandy bottom. It was beautiful.


We also spent some time at Omis, near Split. A far less glamorous resort, British, French and other accents were rare. Omis is dismissed by the Rough Guide because the beach is too gravelly. What they obviously failed to notice was the ridge of beautiful clean limestone rising up behind the town. With climbing in the morning, and swimming and reading on the beach in the afternoon, all within walking distance, we thought that it was a great wee place.


Dubrovnik was our southernmost point. For the final leg of the trip, we are driving up to the Italian Alps and the Dolomites and will have a few weeks climbing there before heading back in early September.

Sweden

Both on the way to and from Norway, we passed through Sweden. It was absolutely nothing like I had expected.