Alta Val Aupa

Asphyxiated by the infernal heat of summer 2008, I decided to act on Gino Pavoni's suggestion and check out the crag Alta Val Aupa. I was immediately struck by the the imposing rock face in the upper sector and I returned a few days later with my brother Enrico, armed with a drill and bolts to establish the first routes.That first day in May unfolded as follows: making use of the old route established by Gino & Co using pegs, I climbed the obvious 80m high crack and reached a terrace at half-height where I finally managed to drill the first bolt. The adventure began here, on a horizontal leftwards traverse, with all the gear clipped to my harness, including the drill, with my brother belaying me from down below. After 20 tiring meters I managed to weight a cliff and place some belay bolts, to reach a comfortable ledge where I equipped a lower-off point. I pulled the rope, abseiled down, and quickly bolted what the next day was to become Orgasmus – 8a, 35m of pure climbing, 11 bolts of intense fun, the first sport climb up the wall.In summer 2009 I began bolting the Central Sector and built a comfortable terrace at the base of the crag. My 2011 climbing season began by freeing two former projects, 'Lupo solitario' 8a and 'Edelweiss' 8a+. The former climbs a fantastic grey wall up small crimps and is destined to become a classic, while the latter climbs 35m of fantastic rock. I then took the drill to hand once again and bolted a dozen other routes, all between 19:30 at 22:00, after having finished work... This is how these beautiful routes were created, which have provided endless summer fun for lots of friends.At present the crag has 21 routes from 6c - 8a+ (to be confirmed) and a 8b/b+ project. The routes vary in length from 10m - 40m and are either short and intense or fingery and highly technical.