Climbing: Marches du Palais
Anna and I went back to the Marches du Palais Saturday but the cliff is in poor condition as most routes are wet. I tried Dernier jour de démocratie (8b) without success. The crimp of the first crux is completely wet. Anna tried Connecting people (8a) but here too the big tufa is wet. Note […]
Cime de Juisse – Peirastreche
Anna and I went back to the Boréon to climb another Couloir in the Northwest face of Cime de Juisse (2580 m), called Peïrastreche. Overall the conditions in the route were okay, there was still snow fresh snow from last week, the third pitch was the most interesting one with less snow and more ice. […]
Trail: Pont du Cians – Col Mairola – Lieuche
Anna and I went to the Cians for a nice trail running of 31 km and 2150 meters of ascent. The trail starts at Pont du Cians and makes a loop around the Gorges Inférieures du Cians and crossing three small villages: Rigaud, Lieuche and Thiéry. There was some snow between Col de Barbenière and […]
Climbing: Marches du Palais – L’homme faible du moment
With all the recent rain, there still not so many choices for rock climbing so we went back to the Marches du Palais close to La Turbie. I did L’homme faible du moment, 7c+ with a new Beta at the end. Anna is too short for this beta so she has to do a big […]
Mont Demant
Bad weather, bad snow, bad choice is how I would summarize this day. It was my fault though, the forecast was not encouraging but I wanted to give it a chance anyway. I went up to the Gorges du Cians and started skiing from Beuil (1450 m) on a thin layer of snow, with the […]
Climbing: Petit Palais – Quel trip te guette ?
Last Saturday we went back to the cliff of Petit Palais, near la Turbie. After the heavy rain of last week, many routes were wet but we still had a nice climbing day. I sent “Quel trip te guette” (7c+) probably the nicest route of the cliff and “Le retour de Mö” (7c/7c+) which is […]
Trail: St Jean la Riviere – La Tour – L’Engarvin
If you are looking for a technical Trail with lots of ascents and descents, there are mainy choices within one hour drive from Nice. Sunday I made one that is a perfect training and test for an Ultra endurance race. It crossed 3 valleys: Vésubie, Tinée and Paillon, 5 passes (Cols) for a total of […]
Climbing: Peillon Cave
Saturday we went back to Peillon’s cave for the first time since spring last year. After the heavy rain of this winter many routes are still wet but there’s still enough to do. I made a desperate attempt in Le Souffle du Vizir (8b+) which is a combination of A bout de Souffle (8b) and […]
Mont Neiglier – Garriou Pippolini
The “Garriou – Pippolini” is a really nice route in the East face of Mont Neiglier (2786 m). The face is 700 meters high with a series of snow Couloir and 4 ice falls (85° maximum). Anna and I climbed the route in 3h30 which was in good conditions despite the rather warm temperatures. The […]
Trail: Ferion – Autaret – Utelle
As I made a lot of ski touring and Alpine ascents in the past months, I really wanted to do some trail running again. I chose a trail of 38 km with +2700m of ascent, not far from Nice. I took a very light pack hoping that I could run most of the time and […]
Climbing: Petit Palais
After the cold of Chamonix last week, Anna and I were looking for a nice rock climbing day under the sun of the french Riviera. So, we went to the Petit Palais not far from la Turbie, a nice small cliff with 19 routes from 6c+ to 8a+. Well, it was a bit warmer than […]
Alpinism: Arete Rochefort
For the last day of photo shoot for Berghaus and the Gore-Tex Active Shell, Anna Gatta, Jon Griffith, Will Sim and I went to the Rochefort Ridge (Arete de Rochefort). We left Torino hut early to be on the ridge before the sunrise. On the way to the “Salle a Manger”, Jon took some amazing […]