In a distant land Italy , where white mountains show blue in the distance, and rapid rivers run in fathomless ravines, on a shore of a boundless lake with clear water, a diminutive town has taken shelter.

Narrow paved streets, wee houses, square, Roman-Catholic church and castle on the rock. From every quarter the town is rounded by high rocks. Waves of the lake break against stern sheer cliffs.

In spring valleys are gay with bright colors of flowers, in summer vineyards show green. Autumn paints slopes with her favorite orange color and winter brings silent and calm.

Arco

Sarca

Just so I see Arco. Closer to winter when crowds of climbers break up, most of the shops with equipment become closed and the square got free from throats, it becomes possible to enjoy calmly morning coffee, squint at the sun and to leaf through the guidebook. To estimate the amount of remaining days of vacations… And to conclude that I will come here over and over…

Valley

Square

Such a lyricism, it seems to be impossible to avoid. After all, Arco – it is really GOOD thing.

Let's turn back to the guidebook. A book of about 200 pages describes most of the route for alpinists in the valley. Common sense suggests me that all the vacations together will be not enough to pass all the routes, so I choose only the best. Thus, the most serious route in the region is “Il Grande Incubo” on Monte Brento. It is 1000 m long, VII, A3.

The route

m.Brento il Grande Incubo

The deion of the route is something very interesting! In the annotation it is said that the grades of difficulty of trad-climbing are given in “new wave” system and the difficulty goes up to A4. When I looked in the dictionary of terms, I feared. Moreover, some elements of the relief are named rather elaborately, for example “the Cornice of Hope” or “the Platform of the Beyond”…

Dramatic personages: Vladimir Belousov and Alexander Novikov.
Dates: 03-07 of January of the year 2007.
The basic principles: quickly, easily, without processing and without portaledge. It is theoretically.

First two principles sometimes are too difficult to observe. In most of the cases it takes a lot of time and is very difficult. But about other principles we are honest. We climb until it gets dark. We pass the night in the place we are caught by darkness. We have learnt to sleep in sitting position. Sometimes we manage to have a colored dream.

Night

Overnight stop

Passing the route we use the classical way of movement. The leader climbs with two ropes, then the second climber goes up along the fixed ropes while the leader is lifting up trunk. We change the leader every day. On the walls like this it seems difficulty to invent something more logical.

As for equipment: we used all the items we had, except bolts. We hammered in all the kinds of hooks, fixed all the chocks, picked in the camalots and danced on skyhooks. In most of the ceilings bolts were hammered, but the key ceiling turned out to be with relief and to climb it over we had to work with all the range of equipment. The hock-circle dismounts in ceiling looked rather effectively!

Anchor

Plate

Cornice

Cosmos

the Nutcracker

Skyhook

Alexander

Vladimir

On the sixth day of the ascent we took a fancy for wine and pizza and climbed over to mountain pasture. If we were not so hungry we could go on making ourselves out to be heroes for one more day. Moreover, the telephone has run down up to the end… and without evening SMS-s it has become boring!