As the weather forecast for Switzerland was poos we cancelled our Swiss sports climbing trip. Luckily Jakob came up with another master plan and him and I spontaneously drove to Italy to Lago di Lecco near Lago di Como. We spent five days there from Saturday to Wednesday. We spent our time leading sport routes at a couple of crags in the area. The climbing was excellent, fast to setup and enjoyable. We climbed a mix of routes between French grade 4c and 6a. In the evenings we cooked by the lake and drank Italian beer. I got in a couple of long runs in the hills behind the lake in preparation for the pain to come in September.
Above and below: The view from our camp site at the Lago di Lecco, day and night.
Above left: Jakob relaxes by the lake with a beer after a day’s climbing. Above right: A stroke of genius. Jakob packed a hammock and strung it up between the trees. During the first day we climbed with friends of Jakob and therefore took turns leading, belaying, and lazing in the hammock Jakob. It’s my turn…
Above: We had planned to climb the cigar, an easy six pitch route up in the hills. In the morning we walked for an hour to the base of the cigar. Literally a couple of seconds after Jakob was on belay for the first pitch there was a crack of thunder(?). We decided to bail as we didn’t fancy being on the route in an electrical storm. Nothing came of the weather however and instead we climbed at a sports crag a few hundred metres lower until it finally began to rain a few hours later.
Above left: Jakob belays from the second pitch of a three pitch sports route at a nice little crag tucked amongst the trees. Above right: Jakob begins to abseil off from the top of the third pitch.
Above: Early on Thursday morning we drove to Switzerland for our four day mountaineering trip to Bishorn with the DAV. Unfortunately the trip had been cancelled. We found this out as we arrived at the start of the trek. Still, we scampered up the track a little any way to take the photo above.