With my feet still feeling the effects of climbing the Eiger 3 weeks ago, I’m now in Italy looking up at a 1000m cliff face. The plan is to climb ‘Via Vertinge’ to the BASE jumping exit point over two days, where my cached Wingsuit and BASE rig will be waiting. Then take a quick flight back to the car-park and drive up to collect Gabo. This was the plan, reality was a bit different.
The 1000m climb was split into 2. The first half consisted of waves of limestone slab broken up by short bands of vertical rock. The second half was overhanging with multiple large roofs. The route, Via Vertinge, is graded 6+, A2.
After a morning of shopping for approach shoes, (with edges to climb in and comfortable enough to aid in) we finally began the approach at 11:30, reaching the start just over an hour later. The route finding had started out fairly easy following a line of nice shiny bolts. I just hoped the rest would be as straight forward.
We decided to block lead with the second self belaying and helping haul the portaledge which contained some gear and our water. We wanted to go as light as possible even though we took the portaledge. No sleeping bag, no cooker and one pair of shoes! I opted for the constantly uncomfortable rock shoes and Gabo for the approach shoes.
We swapped over the lead on an overhanging grade 6 pitch and carried on up the following few pitches of slab. The vertical faces were constructed of pretty solid rock with typical limestone pockets that offered us great climbing. This ended abruptly as Gabo’s next pitch was 70m of unprotected slab until he found the belay. He had to join the haul rope and the lead rope to make up the distance and, after much rope management, hauling, abseiling, juggling and re-tieing in, I had jumarred up just below Gabo. Our troubles weren’t over yet as the rope was caught and Gabo had to whip the slack over a boulder, the rope caught and the small movement then dislodged it. Microwave sized the boulder rolled down towards me, it was either going to hit me or the rope. With little choice I lifted up the rope, put my foot on the wall and pushed away hard allowing it to fly passed without damage, not much was said and we carried on.
Our aim was to climb as many of the aid pitches as possible on the first day. Hauling the portaledge and the late start had not helped us and as we reached the start of the aid section the sun was getting low. A fixed rope lead from the tree we were anchored to, to the first belay and Gabo jummared up it with the lead rope clipped in to the overhanging wall where possible as a backup. It was then my turn. As I reached the belay anchors the sun reached the horizon and we decided to put up the portaledge, a new experience for us both. I anchored myself out of the way and observed Gabo struggle for the next 20 minutes. Why do they never show the pros putting up portaledges in the movies? I think its because you can never make it look professional and efficient. Poles clattering and smashing against the rock, canvas everywhere. We only got one practice the night before at about 12 o’clock amongst the manic packing and organizing.
The night was cold but bearable. My thicker Down jacket definitely helped me but half way through the night Gabo made his way to my side of the ledge and shared “back warmth”. It was the kind of sleep where you look at your watch and only 3 hours have passed by and you feel like you’ve been awake the whole time. We were disturbed from our slumber at 6 in the morning when we heard a huge crash, both wondering if each other had heard it and then realizing it wasn’t rock fall but thunder and lightning. Unnoticed, the rain had gone passed us by being protected by the overhang above us. Although in our immediate position we were relatively sheltered from the ensuing storm any movement from it would expose us in it full, and I didn’t like the idea of being connected to lots of metal objects in an electrical storm. So we made the almost immediate decision to get of the face as soon as possible.
Abseiling off the soaking wet, meandering slab with the haul bag in tow was a logistical nightmare. The first few pitches went really slowly and we eventually reached the lip of the overhang. By this time the thunderstorm had passed but we were still getting rained on and were fully committed to the abseil.
After reaching the bottom my BASE rig was still stashed away at the top, we then drove up and by the time we reached the top the weather had improved enough for me to take a final leap off before the 6 hour drive back to Chamonix.
I’ll have to wait for another trip to finish the route, and I will be back! I can’t thank Gabo enough, this was the first time I climbed with him and I can’t wait to get back on a route, he’s always so psyched!
Thanks to GoPuck for charging my batteries on the way and V12 Outdoor for the portaledge.