Ticino

Switzerland is so beautiful. We bought a camera before we left and, although we are still working out all it's technical bits and bobs, it has been brilliant to be able to capture the beautiful scenery. Here are a couple (in one you can see Kook climbing to the left, a beautiful problem called Conquistador):

As far as climbing goes we have been having a great time. I love the Swiss rock although some areas have better rock quality than others; Brione is the best in my opinion. We have spent a day in Brione already, working old projects that we didn't manage to complete last year. It was encouraging and we both made progress but no cigar yet!



We have also spent some time in an area of Chrionico called Schattental. It's a great area that could easily be overlooked and it has some nice problems. Our first day there I had some success on a problem called Powerstrips. As you may have guessed, it is a powerful problem. Given 7C although definitely at the soft end. The hard climbing is fairly short but the boulder is huge (see pics below) and you have to top out on a very scary slab. The slab climbing isn't very hard but it's not as easy as I would have liked given how far up I was! It's the kind of climbing that one could probably do blindfolded if two foot off the floor but in this case, I won't lie, I was pretty terrified! Right at the top (the place where from the ground it looks like it should be plain sailing) you have to rock over on a right foot smear with with hands on nothing. Eek. Drama over, I was pleased to have done it.

I also tried a problem called Bridge Over Troubled Water in the same area. This was originally climbed by Fabian Christoph and is super. It has a hard start and a technical finish and it took some skin loss and two sessions to get it done. A really nice problem, it was originally graded 7C+/8A (7C+ from the obvious and most commonly used start that I did, and 8A from a lower start that Fabian did) but I think that (from the start I did) it is more realistically 7C.

So, due to sore skin and some rain, today is a rest day.....time to think about what to try tomorrow....