Lake Bled

After a pleasant drive through the Dolomite's and Julian Alps I arrived in Bled last night.

The towering peak of Triglav casting its shadow over the Alpine meadows and villages as i wound my way along the quiet country roads headed for Bled.
This picturesque mosaic of landscapes is totally breathtaking and heightened more by the myriad of reds, amber's and green leaves contrast against the white limestone cliffs, alpine villages, crystal lakes, meadows with grazing cattle and the snow caped peak of Triglav standing high above all of these casting a wise watchful eye over the land.

Lake Bled itself is much smaller than i had imagined, and its picture postcard appearance is truly magical. I will probably spend another day resting and recovering from almost two weeks of non stop climbing before heading down towards Osp where I once again hope to find someone to climb with.

photos will follow.

the dolomites

Well after being fortunate enough to find Anna, who was happy to climb with this mad English man whilst waiting for her friends, Mark and Adam to arrive from the dolomite's, some good climbing was had, we even did a via ferrata as a rest day which provided magnificent views of the town below (Mori) and over to Lake Garda
A couple days after Mark and Adam arrived and with the prospect of good weather we all headed north to Cortina where the fantastic limestone peaks of the dolomite's rise out of the ground in majestic towers and pinnacles that cry out to be climbed.

Mark and Adam, both Exum guides in the Tetons had had mixed results with unfortunate weather and were hoping to vanquish this bad luck, Anna and myself were happy to get on unpolished rock and climb somewhere that wasn´t overcrowded.
Despite the good climbing in Arco most of the crags nearby have suffered from their popularity.

The first night involved the four of us camping out near one of the mountain huts so as to ensure an early start which was almost regrettable after watching the mercury drop to near freezing. fortunately i had no probs with the cold due to being prepared for weathering Siberia but the others felt the cold a bit more, especially Anna as she managed to leave her sleeping bag at Arco.

The first climb on the 8th was an 11 pitch arete on the Trofan de Rozes, and after a sucesfull and enjoyable climb mark and Adam decided that they would stop another night and climbed a longer and slightly harder adjacent arete, Anna and Myself decided that Cinqua torre looked like a nice climb which would remain in the sun all day so we camped a little further up the valley and had a spectacular day, I even got some crag snaffle on the way down.
After two nights of camping out it was a unanimous decision to head to a campsite for the next few days. I attempted a bit of Sport climbing but without a guidebook ended up climbing a 6c+ as a warm up and a 7a which felt much harder and had me resting on the rope with drained arms before i finally struggled up the rest of the route to the top.

the next few days involved an accent of Punta Fiames and Col de Bois both of which are higly recommended and comprise pleasant climbing up to about VS on surprisingly compact rock for the dolomite's.

Arco climbing

Hi all

have found an american lass to climb with who can belay me and who can also understand some of my english. well a bit of my english. but it's better than my german or italian so im on a winner.

did a heap of routs yesterday on rock which felt at times like climbing on glass. Hopfully can find a few routes which arn't to poloished for tommorow and can try to get a few good photos to add to the site.

Hope all is well at home and the sheaf view isn't missing my custom,

take care and have a pint of real ale for me. i thin high neb pump may me in order.

Later.

I made it to Arco

Well the car has done about 2000 miles and after a busy two days of driving around and sleeping in the car i'm now in Arco.

I was in Orpierre from the 26th to the 30th and got a couple of good days climbing in, I set of on Sunday evening and drove from Orpierre to Briancon, where i arrived to watch the last half of the rugby game between RSA and the US.
Then i got take out from the local pizza shop and slept in the car. the following morning involved a drive up to Emosson where i was disappointed to find out that climbing the artificial route on the dam face was strictly prohibited. despite this i tried in vain to find someone to climb this wall with as i had just done a detour of 200+ miles.

After that failed i ran off south down to Aosta where i chased the sun to lake Garda, dodging mad Italian drivers and trucks who seemed intent on trying to hit me, it felt like a high speed game of tig on a four lane motorway running through Milano as the traffic stacked up until most people where less than two meters apart doing upto 100mph.

I suppose that's why these folks have such faith in religion, because if God can't save them when they drive like that then their not long for the world of the living,

Also talking about religion when i was stood next to my car brushing my teeth this morning in a car park just outside of town a Jehovah's witness tried to sell the word of god to me, I was so outraged i almost spat toothpaste all over him. needless to say i'm not converted from my (sinful) ways, so i,m off to have a shower because after two nights sleeping tin the car i'm starting to pong a little and then hopefully some climbing,

Enjoy,

it works, yipee

have found Internet usage where i can also edit my photos onto my HDD;

The weather is still overcast but set to improve on Saturday.
Hoping to meet up with someone to climb with at orpierre for the next couple of days before i need to make tracks to Italy;

I'm updating photos onto flikr so will add a few in later.

on my way to orpierre

ok yes this post keeps changing, because of stupid French kbrds and computers crashing when editing posts... am trying to add photos but it keeps messing up the layout etc..
the post was something about driving 1000 miles to the viaduct, having only 2 hrs sleep, see link to flikr for photos (will put more on later);
Also I got a free meal from a nice couple who were stopping in an RV at the viaduct. drove down to the town and spent an evening drinking something thats a cross between hydraulic fluid and antifreeze with some 20 French scramble bikers who were on a club meet, most amusing bunch, but totally nuts, i think they had a similar impression of me when i told them where i was heading.Have spent the last few days in the gorge du tarn climbing with a Polish couple (Chris + Monica) who now live in England so thankfully their English was much better than my polish. The climbing was good but I'm weak; i got totally pumped on a 32meter 6b+, but felt better yesterday as i did a few long 6a's and even found a 7a didn't feel too bad on top rope, should have done it clean after but we went to look at an 8a instead which Chris couldn't link i couldn't even get to the crux on. The drive over to the Rhone valley was great i recommend the road, just wish i was in Stave's Lotus. Mind you had a few moments when i came around a corner and found i was in a head on situation with some French car overtaking a lorry, most amusing but not when your looking out over a fairly steep drop for a few hundred feet. well off for some more climbing and a few beers tonight i think

thats it im off.

I'm steeing off tomorrow (21/09/2007) the car has 101600 miles on the clock. lets see how good it is. I guess i'm going to add about 10,000 miles or so.