Wednesday should have been better weather, and it was but it wasn’t good enough. It was 10 before I rolled the door open of my van and got the coffee brewing. I fiddled around a bit, worrying if I should try to start selling the CAC t-shirts or not. What I should have done was been out climbing already, but no I was floating around the van. A pretty Italian girl drove by, parked up her van and jumped out with her pad on her back. Registered and went straight out on the blocs. Damn, no messing. I was impressed, so I got my kit together when Loz turned up. The gang were heading up to Sasso Remmeno where Barbera would be trying one of the female blocks.
I wondered around looking for my own dry rock but there were none other than the covered routes. Toby had spent most of the morning dedicating himself to drying one of the unclimbed womens routes, kitchen towel covered the face in a effort to stem the seepage. Finally he decided to pull on, quickly working the beta and testing the bold exit moves. Loz joined in, them me working the starting moves. I managed to get off the ground but the moves were too powerful for me. I retired still with skin on my hands.
Later some of the women competitors moved their attention from the higher boulder, quickly working the lower moves in an entirely different sequence and we saw 2 tops in quick succession. The rain had continued on and off all day, at one point a storm had passed over so a good result considering.
One pizza later, and beware asking for a large coke.. we were back in the Mello village ready to enjoy the film. I got a tap on the shoulder, it was Nicola who wondered if I wouldn’t mind translating the preamble to the evening we were about to see. Simone Pedefferi and Vincenzo Steffaneli were speaking, Nicola offered beer, he upped it to two beers yet based on my previous performance I accepted with reluctance.
Had I know a bit more I would, should have said no. You see my Italian is of a level that knowing the context I can pretty much deduce the meaning of a paragraph. Never have I been put in the position where I have had to explicitly determine the meaning of each and every phrase. What made it more harrowing was the subject matter, which was paying respect to the alpinist Gianni .. who died on the Eiger. There were many friends, and his parents in the audience, and as the introduction went on it was obvious the content was very sensitive, meaningful, philosophical. I felt slightly down afterwards that I hadn’t been able to do it better.