Two Days In Italy

The last 2 days Kenton has been in Italy with Sue Back. After a nasty accident a couple of weeks ago when Sue got hit by a lump of Ice she decided to come back and face her Demons. Thurs saw us drive to Olloment, where the accident happened. This time the crag was ours, and it was in great condition with chewy thick ice. After the steep approach to the crag and gearing up we quickly climbed the first pitch with Sue showing no signs of fear after last time. As I set off on Pitch two a team of Trainee guides from ENSA turned up. They caught us up by the end of pitch two but were super polite about coming pass and both Sue and myself had no problems letting them through. The climb was graded 4+ with the last pitch being the crux which was pretty steep, combined with a tree climbing finish Sue was made up when she reach the top. The funny thing was the French assessor, who left his ice axes at the top when the French team rapped off, it was a red face when he came back up to collect them. The eve was spent in the Hotel Balme in Cogne which as ever was great, and the sauna rested tired limbs before day 2. Cold colouir is a climb I have never done before and Sue was mega keen. We pre-ordered an early breakfast to get there first but we were still beaten by two teams, but we waited and got on it. The 7 pitches we did were great with a number of cool steep pitches with great atmosphere. We decided not to go all the way to the top (which is 600m long) and we rapped after the end of the hard climbing back to our sacs. It was a wonderful day in a beautiful valley, and the walk out was really cool with a half moon popping over the hillside. All in all it was a great couple of days and I was really impressed by Sue who showed her true grit by coming back out and getting stuck back into her climbing. Sorry there are no pics but my camera is still not working, but your will have to believe me when I say the weather and conditions were fab.