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.