UKC

Hi,

Just returned last night from 2½ days of climbing in Cogne. We arrived Thursday noon having driven all night from Denmark, and drove straight to the parking lot in Valnonteny. Geard up and went for the first pice of Ice we could see, it was the Thoule WI3+ Compared to the pictures it was very thin, 2.nd pitch was a free standing pillar. Brilliant start in the sunshine.
We stayed at the Recidence Royale in Cogne, awesome place! 80€ pr night for a huge apartment for the 4 of us. 6€ pr person on top for breakfast, which was very nice!
2nd day we went to the Lillaz valley, and headed for Cold Colouir but a team was already at the base so we headed up for the Chandelle levure WI4 on the other side, did 3 pitches of this, nice and steady WI4. From the top we could see the team on cold colouir was high on the route, Pitch 4, so we abseiled off and ran over to start it, but we only did the first 2 as Pitch 3 and 4 where just snow, Pitch 5 did look good, but it was already a tad late, so we abbed off and went for beers and pizza..
3rd day was Saturday, we drove up to the parking lot at Valnonteney and started the approach along with half of Italy it felt like. So we walked really fast, almost running, form a far we spotted the top right hand pitch of Patri Classica (WI5) so we headed up for that, A team was already on it, but we decided it was wide enough for 2 parties. We quickly overtook the other team, and simul climbed most of the middle pitch('s) to arrive at the top. Top right hand pitch was superb fun, then we abbed of and did the left one as well which ended in a super fun gully. When abbing of 4 teams where starting on the left pitch, we quickly got out of there, and ran over to the next climb to the right of Patri Classica. Its a bit easier, but can find the name of it. Again lots and lots of people fighting for the same pice of ice! We climbed the 5 pitces in just over 1 hr, but it took us almost 2 to get down because there where ques at the belays!
So stay away on weekends, or go to the far ends of the valley (I think most people went for the close more popular routes)

Pic´s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47561738@N00/sets/72157628994636203/

PS The pizza place at the square in cogne,
Un Girotondo Di Pizza Di Abram Onorato Luigi - Pizza Da Asporto
Rue Bourgeois, 11012 Cogne Aosta, Italy
+39 0165 74688 ‎
makes superb pizza´s

In reply to alpinestar_no1:

Sounds like a nice trip. In your photos the 5, (Candelone di Patri) looks to have formed up a lot more than when we were there. Ie it's there at all... reckon it's about climbable yet?

We've just left around there to hit up the Ecrins (Celliac now - looking good, finally ) for a while, but might end up back there before the season is up.

Don't think you missed much on CC - the top pitches were a bit crusty when we did them a little while back, the first 2 60m pitches were the best. The top pitch of Levure is normally worth running up though.

In reply to troglodyte:
Sure we climbed it, it was super nice!
Here my friend is leading it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47561738@N00/6747967673/in/set-721576289946362...
It was very fun climbing with a lot of bridging and so on. Ice in the back was good for protection.
Perhaps I am getting the rounte name wrong..

In reply to alpinestar_no1: Isn't that Patri right though?

In reply to Hannes: Here is a picture of both taken the week before last.

https://picasaweb.google.com/104361741331129111901/BlogPictures?authkey=Gv1...

Al

In reply to alpinestar_no1:

Yup in your photos that's Patri right, the candelone is a little to the left of Patri Right. There's not much of it there in Al's photo, but your photos seem to show the surrounds fattening up a bit, I thought maybe it was starting to come in.