Seen from from the Sella Pass road, the Piz Ciavazes cannot fail to impress – a massive wall of steep, good rock which breaks abruptly two thirds the way up at the ‘Gamsband’. Most routes proceed no further than this level, since the upper tier is said to be poor rock. Even more impressive is the 15 minute approach from the road (but little did we appreciate about the way off!!)
The big diedre pitch has a nasty sting in the tail, fortunately protected by a nice fat piton. Here you see Terry before he disappeared out of sight and incurred the rope drag that slowed us down, leading to problems two pitches ahead.
We had until now been following parties in front but had now lost them, due to our delay, and seemed surrounded by impenetrable territory.
I shouted to John, who had been in the party just ahead of us. A reply came from way over to our right and then I could just see him in the final, nasty chimney. Fine, I thought, it goes over there. Why do we never learn? Why do we follow lines of pitons and tat rather than carefully read the guide book (and the rock)?
Another diedre led up to what looked like a rightwards traverse line that led to the base of the chimney. I could see bits of old tat in the steep overhanging wall above the traverse. I set off up the diedre – it hadn’t seen much, if any, traffic. It was hard! I reached the traverse line and my destination now seemed miles away!
Already there were spots of rain, with the traverse to finish and the nasty chimney ahead.
Fortunately we made it, incredulous at the difficulty. We reckoned it was twice as long as Haste Not and harder.
The rain didn’t happen and we finished the climb only to find the descent, dismissed as trivial by the Ron James guide (be careful of this guide) was more of an undertaking than the climb. But that’s another story.
We subsequently discovered I had taken the wrong line and what should have made a diagonal traverse at a relatively easy IV+ instead of a desperate VI- horizontal.
Needless to say, much beer was consumed upon our safe descent and even more that night. It was our last climb of that trip and we spent a lovely next day in Venice.
I wonder how much beer was consumed that made you end up partying with this strange cat-woman! :sarcy: 🙂
That traverse looks absolutely scary!!! :freeze: So you deserved all the beer and all the :clap: :clap: :clap:
What Terry didn’t say was that had it rained when we were on the traverse or just after it we’d have been in a Hinterstoiser situation with no retreat. A very scary end to a very good route. There was a litre of red wine as well as the beer followed by free Grappa! After the Delago and this route so good to be alive! 😀
Glad you survived to live and climb another day 😀
Oh, and blog of course.