Some days in Ticino

Me, Korni and Katha spent the last days down in Ticino, giving it a try on the quest for dry boulders. After realising that there still is plenty of snow arround we first focused on climbing in Cresciano. Our first day there, a sunday, was sunny, dry and with perfect temps, psyche was high! We bouldered in Osogna on classic old lines like "Revê de Mario", the first 8A in Ticino established by Fred Nicole back in the day or the perfect slab "Mary Poppins"... It felt so good to touch the good old swiss granite after a long period of snow, rain and days in the gym...

The next two days were rainy and we ended up sitting and driving arround, basically getting really bored and hoping for the weather to clear up. Wednesday was sunny finally and we were back at Cresciano. We mainly tried "Mithril", a short and steep 8B established by Dave Graham.  All the moves went down for both of us at the end of the day so motivation was high to come back and try the whole thing. Two days later we returned and started trying it from the start. I suddenly stuck the first move, did the second, the third,... and suddenly found myself on the tricky mantle! Kinda shaky and surprised what's going on I did't get a foothold the right way and when I tried to stand up allready, all of a sudden, my foot slipped and I dived down face first into the pads! Holy crap! I just fckd it up at the mantle!... Luckily nothing was hurt except some scratches and my heartbeat slowed down again... Whilst I took a long rest Korni managed to fight his way out the roof too and was at the mantle... Both of us knowing you easily can blow it up there we were kinda stressed, him climbing, me spotting. He kept it together though, stood on the slab, shaking like he had just drunken 20 Espresso shots in a row, greeeat success!! I put my boots back on again, ready to find out if I could climb the thing again and get another chance for the mantle... After struggling on the first move twice I stuck it and climbed up to the mantle again! This time I was better prepared, did everything exactly according to Beta-Plan and topped out, yessss :)

The following days we spent climbing in Chironico, on and off, with the rain between sunny days... I managed to climb a really amazing problem called "Conquistador", 8A+, compression climbing on a beautiful bloc lying in the riverbed at "Schattental".

Allthough the weather was pretty bad most of the time we had  some nice days as well and can't wait to return soon! Some more shots in the bouldering and people galleries.

 

                                      Conquistador - Pic by Katha                   Warming up in Cresciano