Val di Mello 18-26 September 2012

The drive from Lago di Garda to Val di Mello was longer than we expected after looking at the map. We are realising that the van is heavy and slow up mountain roads...We are definitely not traveling light: slackline and highline gear, full rack of trad gear, a descent rack of quickdraws, clothes for all weather conditions and skiing (you never know, turkey does have ski resorts..) , the schnaps box, enough food to survive beyond the apocalypse, .... oh and I forget to mention bags and bags of wool for our new brand of handmade crochet hats called EWOOLUTION!!!

So we arrive at night in Val di Mello and park near the big bolted boulder on the main road, it looks quite impressive even in the dark..

First day will be sport climbing,getting comfortable on the granite, actually it will be sport/trad for our warm up.. A perfect 6b+ crack on the top of the route which you need to use natural protection on.
We were climbing without a guide book and ended up getting on some routes that were a little too technical for our first day and Raffa lost a big piece of skin that day! oops! Welcome to Val di Mello :)

Raffi was trying on his craft clothes and has a green outfit of long underwear, I said : you look like a super hero! A few days later he came up with the idea to make a video of a super hero : The Craft Man! He made up a funny scenario and we shot the scenes around the area we were camping and on the highline... we will see how the editing goes on the first video we make and also the end result! eager to get some time to make it!

We made a multi pitch called Luna Nascente, 9 pitches , 6b, almost 400 meters. Was really cool but scary! At the end it wasn't obvious where to go for the last anchor and I ran it out for a while but as Raffi says: "If you're in doubt, Run it out!"

We went bouldering in Val Masino and spotted a Sauna at the top of the road we Needed to try according to Raffi, was a great idea because the place was so nice and we were almost the whole time alone! Sauna is definitely a nice way to get warm and clean when traveling around in a bus with no shower!!! ;)










And Molly tried to play with the one and only crag goat...