The Blorenge

Alastair BegleyMountain Biking Short Link

Last weekend I made the most of the good weather by heading out with my parents on a short mountain bike circuit around the Blorenge. It is always great to start at the top of a hill, rather than at the bottom. After a short warm up traversing the hill we were soon at the first descent. The first section was very overgrown with heather, and very rough and rocky which was interesting. After this first section was complete there was a lovely long section of single track which took us down to the Punchbowl. After an initial very steep climb which definitely involved a push up, the rest of the climb back up to the top was fairly straightforward. I was expecting the last short descent back down to the car to be fairly unexciting. However I was very much mistaken, the descent started by traversing along a terrace with fantastic views. It then carried on down a lovely grassy descent with lots of natural bumps and jumps. We were soon back on the initial traverse path and made our way back to the car. This will certainly be. Read the full article…

Mountain rock climbing above Misurina

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Rock Climbing Short Link

Between our days at Cinque Torrie, and to finish our trip we had two excellent days out rock climbing above Misurina. The first was a short day on Diedro Mazzorana and the second was the long mountain multi pitch route Mazzorana. Diedro Mazzorana With another day with a poor afternoon forecast, we found the easily accessible Diedro Mazzorana which climbed Monte Popena Basso in 4 pitches. After getting hopelessly lost on the approach thanks to the awful description in the Rockfax book we just about decided that we still had enough time to climb the route. The first pitch was excellent with some enjoyable corner climbing, and just enough gear to keep me comfortable. The second pitch was fairly scrappy, which took us towards the chimney feature for the outstanding final two pitches. The final two pitches involved excellent chimney climbing, with some outstanding exposure, bridging, face climbing and a little bit of thrutching for good measure.  The views from the summit were excellent, and the descent back down was very easy which made for an excellent morning out. When we got back down to Misurina we had a quick,. Read the full article…

Two Mornings at Cinque Torri

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Rock Climbing Short Link

We had a couple of mornings climbing at Cinque Torrie as we had forecasts with a nice morning, followed by a stormy afternoon. Climbing at Cinque Torrie meant that we could easily approach with a chairlift, followed by a short walk in. Day 1 On the first morning we climbed the classic Via Normale on Quarta Bassa, which was fully bolted. It is a very classic route, but as we got the first chairlift we were the first on the route. We ran some pitches together to climb the route in two excellent pitches. After a quick photo on the top we had an atmospheric abseil down into a cave between Quarta Bassa and Quarta Alta. We were very glad for the early start as by the time we had got back to our bags, the initial pitches of the route were chaos as there were about 3 separate teams climbing the route at the same time. As the bad weather had not yet arrived, we then made the most of our 60m ropes by climbing a two pitch sport route, Bassa Thirteen, as a single pitch. The route climbed. Read the full article…

Via Ferrata Punta Anna & Lamon/Formenton

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

The Punta Anna via ferrata is a classic route which climbs Punta Anna and then continues onto Tofana di Mezzo by combining three via ferratas: Ferrata di Punta Sant Anna, Ferrata Guiseppe Olivieri and then Ferrata Gianni Aglio. It is a long route which is graded 5c, so a fairly serious undertaking. Usually this route would finish at the lift station at Tofana di Mezzo, however at the start of July this lift was not yet open. This meant we had to descend using two other via ferratas (Ferrata Lamon and Formenton) which also involved climbing another peak, Tofana di Dentro. As the book gave this day 12 hours we reluctantly had yet another early start. The walk into the route from Rifugio Dibona was a harsh wake up in the morning as it was very steep. We arrived at the base of the route at the same time as another British couple, who we ended up spending the entire day with which was a lovely addition to our day. The climbing was very interesting as it was mainly focussed on rock and was also fairly technical whilst also not. Read the full article…

Tomaselli via ferrata

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

With a poor afternoon forecast we decided to have an early start on the Tomaselli via ferrata in order to avoid the crowds and make sure we were back down before the rain arrived. Apparently this route used to have the reputation of being the hardest via ferrata in the Dolomites. We joined the many other vans sleeping at the cable car station, which meant that we had as much sleep as possible before our early start. The morning was beautiful as there was not a cloud in the sky. The walk out of the car park was fairly brutal, and did lead to us questioning our decision to not use the lift, however the views were fantastic which did somewhat make up for the hard ascent. We made great time to the start of the route, as we were there before the cable car even opened. The start of the route was tricky, but not overly interesting as it required lots of cable pulling, interspersed with lots of very loose ledges. The second half of the route was significantly better than the first half. The rock was solid, the. Read the full article…

Giovanni Lipella Via Ferrata

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

Due to a deteriorating weather forecast we decided to relocate to the Dolomites. On our first day we decided to climb the classic Giovanni Lipella route up the Tofana de Rozes. As it was a weekend we had an early start to avoid queueing on the route, which worked out really well as we didn’t have to wait for anyone all day. The route starts from a car park up a gravel road at 2000m, which made for an excellent overnight van camping spot. We woke up in the morning to rain which was a bit unexpected, but left the van anyway on the promise that it would soon clear up. The initial walk certainly woke us up and got the blood flowing, but we were soon at the Gallerie del Casterletto. The Gallerie del Casterletto is a set of tunnels which were created by the Italian military during WW1, and were fairly impressive due to the amount of height that was gained as we travelled through the tunnels. We ignored the sign to our route which exited the tunnels before the end, and climb to the top of the. Read the full article…

Reinhard Schiestl Klettersteig

Alastair BegleyAustria, Via Ferrata Short Link

With a morning weather window we decided to climb our local klettersteig as we could easily walk to it from our campsite. The route was called the Reinhard Schiestl Klettersteig, and it was graded “D” which meant that it was much harder than the previous route. The route started off as it meant to continue, with steep and strenuous climbing from the off. The hardest bits actually seemed technically easier than some of the easier bits, but just very exposed. Despite some drizzle on the ascent we made excellent time to the top of the route, and managed to descent back down to the campsite before it started to properly rain.

Wildspitze Traverse

Alastair BegleyAlpinism, Austria Short Link

The Wildspitze was the main objective from our trip to the Sölden in Austria. I had intended to climb some other peaks first to acclimatise, however the weather had other ideas! We set off from a village high above Sölden called Vent. The day started with two chairlifts which gained us a considerable amount of height. We had elected to walk to the hut via another peak, the Wildes Mannle, this was a fairly short outing as lift station to hut only took us two hours. However it did get us a bit more mileage in our legs, and gave us a good view of the glacier that we would be crossing the next morning. After a lovely evening at the hut with fantastic evening light, good company and good beer we had an early night in the luxury of a 2 bed room. The next morning we woke up to dense fog which meant that we thought we were going to have to change our route to the normal route instead of the Rofenkarferner route. Thankfully after breakfast the cloud broke, so we were able to stick with our. Read the full article…