Val di Bagni

It’s hot here, so hot. At weekends it gets busier and busier as the crowds escape from Milan which apparently is even hotter. The rivers still carry some of their glacial cool with them and plummet the temperature by a good 10 degrees, making bouldering next to them a pleasure, but away from the rivers you can’t last more than 20 minutes. I have taken to starting climbing at 5.00, just as the evening cool comes in.

Val di Bagni

But there is one hidden gem, Val di Bagni, breaking west out of Val di Massino instead of east to Val di Melo this Valley is the opposite of Melo, where Melo is wide meadows, with stone villages, sporadic forests and boulders catching the full glare of the sun. Bagni is tall dark Beech and Pine forests, glacial streams pouring through it off the alpine summit of Piz Baldie into a raging torrent at the bottom. The forest floor is covered in moss and the forest is dark and very cool. The boulders are often very high here, making a fine line between a boulder problem and a solo. As with much of the area many of the problems are reverting back to nature, simply not enough boulders to keep the moss at bay. The best problems tend to remain clean, but I would bring a wire brush next time I visit.

More Val di Bagni

The cool of the forest has allowed me to release a bit more energy into the bouldering and feeling back on form managed a 6c+. It was typical of the local problems, low sit start with one tiny foothold which this time was in a position I could use. One hand on the sloping arête and other crimping a small undercling, then a lightning slap up to another crimp for the right hand, reposition my body and throw again with my right for the finishing hold and topping it out. The perfect combination of static control from my left arm and dynamic snatches with my right!

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of me in action on the boulders as it is hard to climb and take photos of myself. I thought of getting the tripod out and using the self timer, but this would look blatantly posed. So I’ve only got more photos of the scenery, sorry for yet more alpine streams, but hopefully this set of photos will illustrate the difference between Bagni and Val di Mello.

I seem to have written this blog in two parts and haven’t been able to think of away to link them without rewriting the above, so just going to launch into the next section.

Every fourth day I have as a rest day, this rest day I should decided I should be a bit more active. With so many mountains around there is loads of good walks. So up I headed to Bagni after a sleepless night thanks to the tent load of kids and a dog which are camped feet away from my head. I soon found a path signposted to the refugio of Omio, a nice trail with the odd painted boulders so you don’t get lost and even a time estimate on a sign of two and a half hours. For those of you who know me, years of canoeing and climbing have done a tremendous amount to unnuture my legs, and bean poles is an apt description. Unknown to me this hike took me nicely from the valley floor of Bagni as 1200 metres up to the refugio Omio at 2500 metres; it was one long hard slog uphill the whole way. I only made it by sheer will power as my fitness and muscles had given up somewhere down in the forests. The estimate of two and half hours was spot on for me, although someone with legs could probably do it in half the time.

The Refugio at 2500m

My only saving grace was the walking poles I had bought last year when Yvette and I went to Switzerland. They helped a tremendous amount to pull me up the hills and even more to soften the impact on the long two hour descent. I probably won’t do this sort of masochistic exercise every rest day, but for a one off, being able to walk through forested valleys, into the alpine meadows then into the rough highlands and see the nature slowly change is quite remarkable and probably only possible in a walk which increases in altitude so quickly. On route it is pretty much just you and nature, the odd ‘fitter’ walker would amble past and apart from a long green snake which slithered out of my way and one herd of cows I was pretty much alone.

Walkers approaching the Refugio

Enough of the romanticisms! Reckon my legs are going to ache something terrible tomorrow.