Frauke and I attempted some climbing near Arco on a slabby rock climbing crag. I say attempted as we were hampered a bit by the weather. The rock was interesting. It was just one large slab with little pocky finger holes. Normally I don’t like that sort of climbing but the rock was at a fairly gentle angle. It was drippingly hot again and this was causing the hampering.
We started up a multi-pitch route on the slab. I lead the first pitch and then tied into the bolted anchor. Frauke climbed up next and anchored also. I lead another pitch and set myself up to belay Frauke again. The rock was ridiculously hot and my feet felt like they were burning. We decided against the third pitch due to it being quite uncomfortable. Instead we abseiled down to the first anchor, tied in, and abseiled back down to the bottom of the climb.
Above left: Cris leading the first pitch. Above right: Draws on Frauke’s harness. Below left: Frauke getting ready to abseil. Below right: Cris abseiling.
Emily and Chris had gone off in search of new mountain bike shoes for Chris as one of his broke yesterday. If the time-stamp on the photo below is to be believed (and it is), they were eating ice creams as we sweated in our harnesses at the top of the first pitch.
Above: Chris and Emily avoided the climbing by eating ice creams and looking for mountain bike shoes. Chris looks particularly pleased with his choice.
After drinking a lot of water we decided to try another climb. I started leading and clipped a couple of bolts before deciding that it was all getting a bit silly. The rock on this climb was black and was unbearably hot. The ambient temperature must have been over 40 degrees and the rock really was hot enough to burn. Crazy. Frauke went up and rescued my draw and we bailed. We rode back to the Gardasee and went swimming. Much more pleasant although the climbing was quite interesting.
In the evening the two of us went for a quick ride up the little hill between Torbole and Riva. Chris and Emily cooked a Chris-and-Emily feast.
Above left: Cris descending on a little rocky section during a quick ride in the evening. Above right: Frauke looks out towards the lake from the Riva side of the hill. Below: View out towards the Gardasee.
