Val di Mello

Initially Bernd and I planned to go climbing in the Bergell, Switzerland. The famous Cassin route on the north east face of Piz Badile was our main target. Saturday afternoon I drove to Bernd in Basel. We had a nice dinner and the next morning we did the last weather check. It should be o.k., but like the weeks and maybe even months before the main weather situation was far from stable. So we decided to drive to the Bergell and before walking up to the hut we called the gardien. We got the message: “to wet, wait a few days…”. Ok then, we decided to drive another 2,5 hours to the Italian side of the Badile and do so some adventure climbing in the val di Mello.

Next morning we started climbing the “Kundalini”. One of the major classics in the valley. 12 pitches in cool cracks, slabs and traverses. The belays are on in situ pitons. Along the route there are some pitons as well, but basically you have to protect the whole route yourself. We took two complete sets of friends with us and with all the gear all relevant sections are protectable.

5 hours of climbing brought to us to the top of the route. We checked out the start of Luna Nascente which  starts immediately at the top of the Kundalini. Unfortunately the next morning we had some serious rain (which of course was not predicted). As it turned out the bad weather would stay for days….

This summer is really difficult if you want to work on your projects… so we went to the Ecrins again.

one of the traverses under the big roof...

and so on...

post-climbing-rehydration 

Facts: Kundalini, TD, max 6b, 12 pitches, bring  2 full racks of friends and enough slings to minimize  rope drag in the traverses. A retreat in the route is difficult. For a good topo use the “topoguides”. Funny enough the Kundalini is even mentioned in the Suisse plaisir guide south. I mean, the route was fun but definitely not accessible to “plaisir climbers”… other cool routes in the valley are the Luna Nascente and Oceano Irrazionale.