A Latin Flavour

Yesterday Clare and I awoke to a grumpy cow on the julien Pass. We were parked up and camping next to her field: how dare we! Anyhow she was cute so I'll add a picture soon... when I have a signal. 

After a lazy start (we had driven three and a half hours the night before with Clare feeling unwell) we headed to the Albigna lift to get some climbing done. It turns out that when you Google the lift one of the top hits is from a friend of ours writing for the club rag "County Climber." I digress: we did some climbing! We accidentally did a harder variation of the NE Ridge but had a lot of fun although some very delicate moves on slabs were needed in approach shoes! After manning-up much fun was had. 

The Latin flavour comes in two parts: firstly as I topped up the baked goods supplies I was barraged with Italian by the shop keeper (or so it felt). I know a bit of German and a bit of French. To say I know a little bit of Italian is probably stretching the truth. I had forgotten some bits of Switzerland speak Italian and was completely taken off guard. I was turned in to an awful Brit-abroad mess. Thankfully we later redeemed ourselves one a quick nip over the border for pizza - yes, we really did cross the border, eat pizza, sleep, then promptly switch back to the Swiss side (with the customary eye roll for being climbers from the border guard who stopped us to see if we needed more taxing. 

That brings me to today: a drive up a dirt road, a two hour walk and a slice of apricot tart might not sound amazing and neither may the afternoon nap, but tomorrow should be! The road in question is a tiny, unbarriered, steep track with a tunnel that it turns out a van fits through - just! It leads to the trail head for the Sasc Fura hut, which sits below the Piz Badile. Tomorrow's plan? The north ridge!