Finally in Finale - Rian Cornei, Ciappo delle conche superiore

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Time to head back to Italy and see the Mediterranean sea and enjoy the mild fall climate. Our journey started on Friday straight from the work and from the chilly Helsinki. After a busy morning we rushed to the airport to catch the flight to Milan. After 3 hours  flight and 2 hours drive to Finale Ligure the day was finally completed. And in just about 6 hours from the start the temperature has raised adorable 25 degrees.

Spring and fall in Italy is supposed to be the best time of a year for climbing. And so it seems to be! On the first morning the sky was crystal clear and temperature +20 Celcius degrees with a nice wind from the Mediterranean sea, not a bad start. I don't know if we are lucky or if the weather is just good in here. I bet that we have a small amount of luck because our landlord told that just a week before the weather was rainy. Well let's just enjoy the luck and head up to the crags.

For the first climbing day we headed to the Valle di Rian Cornei, valley where we had our last climb just a year before (Rian Cornei, Falesia del cinghiale). The first crag for this year's journey was Ciappo delle Conche settore superiore that is on the opposing side of the same valley.

Crag has been found 1994 and completed 1995. Based on the bolts at the crag it looks like that some of the routes have been re-bolted quite recently. Still some anchors looked original and the bolting spacing is a bit spread out even on re-bolted routes. Routes are in the range of 5c to 6c and are about 15 meters long. Excellent crag for medium level climbers but the grading is typical Finale, so routes are more demanding what the grade states. Approach to the crag is reasonable taking a bit less than 20 minutes from the parking. As a small detail to check out before arriving the crag: noticeable engravings on a nice big rock plateau.

Rock quality is good and the difficulty of the routes is primarily coming from technical moves, athletic parts and usage of pockets. So all the typical elements of the Finale climbing are present.

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Finale Ligure, Rian Cornei, Ciappo delle Conche superiore, 25.10.2014