Italy: Valleys of Rock

The Apuane

In the summer of 2004, we went climbing with Dimitri in the Valle Garrafano in the Apuane Alps, a limestone region famous for its Carrara marble, north of Lucca in Tuscany.  Dimitri had been a tenant of ours in Cambridge during a sabbatical spent working in the University Library. We had been climbing together in the Lake District. He was now married to another climber, Teresa. We returned the following summer in 2005 and were whisked off again to the rocky valleys of Italy’s far northwest in Dimitri’s yellow Kangoo van.

Valle Maira, Valle Gesso and Valle dell’Orco

We climbed in the Valle Maira and Valle Gesso in Piedmont in the Maritime Alps, just across the border from the Parco Nazionale del Mercantour in France. Then we drove further north to the Valle dell’Orco in the Graian Alps near the Parco Gran Paradiso, where we had gone walking with our children in 1986.

The Routes

The rock in these northern valleys was superb gneiss and granite, and the climbs were fairly long, delightful routes at about English VS grade 4c. Dimitri has a large group of climbing friends in Florence and is something of a ‘pied piper’; they look to him to decide where to go and what to climb. With us, Dimitri chose well, and we managed to climb half a dozen or so fantastic routes.

Published 29 Nov 2024, 60 pages, ISBN 9781912460229