Versante Sud - Aosta Valley vol. 1

Klik hier voor de inhoudsopgave en een voorbeeld van een routebeschrijving

Although the Aosta Valley is geographically quite small from a climbing perspective it is incredibly rich and varied. The landscape is distinctly alpine, shaped by a series of lateral valleys that all converge into the main valley carved out by the river Dora Baltea. Each one of these valleys has glacial origins and during the last ice age, the massive Balteo Glacier reached as far as today’s Canavese area.

The signs of its passage are still clearly visible and local climbers have made the most of the glacier’s ancient scratches carved into the sides of the main valley, equipping a remarkable number of crags that continue to grow year after year. While the first and most obvious sectors have helped establish the long history of sports climbing in the region, recent years have witnessed the development of new crags greatly expanding the local climbing opportunities and making the Aosta Valley one of Italy’s main hubs for outdoor climbing.

The lateral valleys which run from the main ridge of the Alps in a few dozen kilometers merge into the main valley and reach quite elevated altitudes and are densely packed with crags, mainly summer crags, making it possible to enjoy cool climbing days in the shade of the Alpine giants, with breathtaking views of the region’s 4000 meter peaks. During winter temperature inversion in the lower valley has the opposite effect, often allowing for sunny climbing even on the coldest days. 

For this guidebook, the authors have chosen to focus on the eastern side of the Aosta valley and its side valleys, including the foothill areas of the Canavese area. Although this macro-area is administratively split between two different regions, for climbers it is a single, coherent territory: logistically straightforward, morphologically similar and offering, within a radius of about 50km centered around the Fort of Bard, an impressive number of crags suitable for all four seasons.