With all aspects of snow ruined by wind I excitedly accepted Jon's invitation to Cogne for my first proper ice-climb. A late start, a junction too far on the motorway and a 100e fine for not going through the peages correctly resulted in a slight downer to start the day (we carefully checked for signs before turning around and there were none).
We eventually got to the parking, geared up and set off. Great views and a lot of ice. The hike in was longer than stated and the closer climbs had groups on them. Eventually we found a nice grade 3 and started to hike up. The hike up was vile and way longer than we expected. After stripping off we finally made it to the base and geared up.
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| Amazing waterfalls en route |
The second pitch was clearly harder than the first. I wanted to lead my first ice pitch so I jumped straight in and lead the easier pitch. Sam and Mike roped up leaving me and Jon paired. I was bricking it as Sam, starting before I did, said the ice was poor. As soon as I started I gained confidence and flew up, only to get to a trickier bit and remember I hadn't actually placed any protection in the easier 7+ metres below. Oops. Placing the first screw was an absolute ball-ache and took forever whilst my hands / calves were screaming. I'd never placed a screw with only one hand and it is MUCH harder than you expect. You need to apply force and twist without dropping it (as Jon did later...). Eventually I got it in and continued up, placing a few more screws.
At the anchor I had to have 5 minutes to dispel the ridiculous hot aches I was getting having not shaken out for the entire pitch (or "screaming barfies" as Jon calls them). Absolute agony. The most pain I've been in for a long time. All I was thinking was "why the f**k do people do this s**t". Thankfully they subsided and I brought Jon up. By this time Mike was leading the harder pitch: After working hard to get his first screw in near vertical he carried on up slowly. Jon climbed on to his left and raced up, catching Mike at the top only to get dizzy and start to lose vision. Mike quickly got Jon safe and after he built an abalakov (anchor directly into the ice) and placed a screw, I lowered Jon down. Mike followed, tired from leading.
As Jon was feeling better he belayed me up the same pitch. I felt really good and found it pretty easy. Whilst confident, I didn't want to lead the last pitch as it was already very late and I didn't wan't to get stuck building anchors up there in the dark without a torch. Sam got to the top just after me and decided to go for the final pitch. I decided to wait for the other two to get up and then use their rope to join them.
Unfortunately Sam tired himself out halfway up the final pitch and had to retreat. Without a tool for threading the abalakov this took him a VERY long time. Eventually he managed it and we lowered him down whilst he abseiled as we weren't sure how strong the achors were (they weren't that deep). He got down safely and we hastily rappeled down to our bags and packed up in the dark with two head-torches between the four of us. We walked down the crappy path in crampons and then hit the main path for a scenic walk back.
En route home we stopped in at a cafe for an amazing, inexpensive, pizza. Got to love Italy.
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| Late night gear sortout |
Despite everything going wrong we all had a good day. Though my experience is virtually nil, I can say that on good ice, ice climbing is actually not that hard in itself compared to climbing. However the protection is just so much harder, time consuming and annoying to use. I'm sure that leading will get easier as I continue, but as of now the gulf between lead / top-rope is huge. This probably wasn't helped by my crampons being blunt and rubbish meaning I mainly used my arms.
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