Yesterday was blazingly hot and we spent hours taking the trad gear for a walk up and down a mountain with no climbing whatsoever. The guidebooks for the area are a complete nightmare to use and we got bit badly by them. We walked in to do a route which was an epic up and down a mountain into another valley. Once we got there and looked at the massive walk still to do up the screes on the other side we decided we wouldn't have enough time to actually complete the 400m of climbing and called it off. It seemed sensible to walk out via the closer carpark we should have parked in and walk back up the road to our car. Big mistake. This took up miles out of our way at the bottom of a valley. We left James and Chris with the gear and Adam and I started the walk up the hill trying to hitch as we went. Over an hour later and about a third of the way up we finally got a lift from a kind Italian chap who didn't speak a word of English! Karma was returned when we gave a German bloke a ride back down the road. All the walking had killed us so we spent the rest of the day lounging in the park before grabbing some beers in Cortina and having a wash in the river. Chris our resident chef rustled up an awesome spaghetti bolognaise for dinner.
We pitched tents in a massive carpark overnight and did a very neat job anchoring the tents down with rocks instead of tent pegs.
Today we walked in to do a couple of four pitch routes above a massive lake. All these massive towers and faces look the same up close and Chris and I managed to do some accidental new routing up a completely different piece of crag to where we should have been. The rock was really chossy and I threw loads of rocks up to head size down as Chris as I was leading the 40m slabby first pitch. Pitch 2 was a pretty gnarly 40m chimney, incredibly loose, that I had to excavate on the way up. No gear for the first 10m and I had a bit of an issue trying to furtle gear in at the crux without falling out and hitting the belay ledge. The chimney eased in difficulty but remained loose ad required lots of care to find relatively solid parts to pull on. Topped out on a little pinnacle with awesome views. Route is called Dirty Dancing VS 4a, 4c 80m, very loose. We abbed off and had a really harrowing journey down avalanching scree slopes back to the bags. I'd had enough near-death for one day and the weather was starting to turn so Chris and I headed back down to the car and found a bar while Adam and James finished their first route and went to start the route we were supposed to be doing.
An hour later and a storm broke and Team B had to abb off in torrential rain (James' first abseiling experience) while Chris and I enjoyed wheat beer and chatted to a hot Italian barmaid. They arrived back absolutely soaked through so they'll be having a rest day tomorrow to dry their kit out. It's still raining so we got some takeaway pizza in Cortina for dinner and pitched tents again. Hopefully the weather will improve soon as the hammocks are about a billion times more comfortable than sleeping on the ground! The rain is having a really depressing effect on the whole team - it's difficult to still see the magic when you're wet and cold!
Hopefully a days climbing for Chris and I tomorrow. Think we'll head over to the Sella Towers on Monday - we're all psyched for Tenker Crack!
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