Melloblocco Day 1: magical

Magical. This is the word that best describes the first day of Melloblocco, the world's biggest climbing meeting currently taking place in Northern Italy. Val Masino and Val di Mello welcomed the first Melloblockers in all their splendor, offering a magnificent range of colours that only these valleys can offer: all greens, blue, turquoise and yellow. And of course white, on the snow-capped peaks, while the sun shone splendidly, warming up the air and the valley boulders.

This year well over 3000 climbers have signed up for the event and the first started to arrive at the Village at San Martino early in the morning, to register for the meeting and to pick up the event bag. Then they flung their crashpads onto their backs and off they dashed. Up towards Val di Mello, where time seems to have stopped still 50 years ago, or down following the gushing river towards the Centro Polifunzionale. All on foot, because up here cars are pretty much useless.

The atmosphere of total relax was palpable today and it was great to see new faces and, at the same time, touching to meet up with friends one hadn't seen for years. One of the key rules in magic is to never perform the same trick twice. Melloblocco is an exception.