Anaconda freeride run

GPS map of the day.

It was time for a good trail run. Having a good trail means also a long ascent with a lot of pedaling. Target trail for the day was Anaconda that is one of the most enjoyable rides that I have rode at the Lake Garda region. Trail starts from a village Santa Barbara at 1170 meters. To get there we had to pedal uphill around 1100 meters via road SP88 that eventually ends up to Santa Barbara.

For some reason we started the day slighly later than usually. We left from Villa Nicole at noon at the hottest moment of the day. For our luck the temperature was only 34 celcius degrees and there was actually a good propability for a rain.

Having a break.

Our pedaling part took about 2 hours and 20 minutes. During the climb we had our first break in a shadow after the first 300 vertical meters. It was essential to choose a shadowed spot for the breaks, otherwise we would have run out our water supplies too early. After the first stop we had a break after every 200 meters of pedaling. This may sound lousy for a street biker but for a trail biker with a heavy bike to pedal and to carry all the essential protective gear it is decent uphill. 

Start of the trail.

Once the pedaling part was completed up to, the Santa Barbara, we found the trail by turning right to a dirt road just before the center of the village. Actual trail found soon after that on the right side of the dirt road. Anaconda trail is starting a trekking path number 637 and the beginning point was easy to find.

Trail starts with a smooth part with good nature banks that allows to ride fast. Regular cross country riders can enjoy the same trail just with less speed. There were few small upphills at the trail, but overall it was a smooth and enjoyable ride. First part continues to Malga Fiavei. From there the trail follows the dirt road for some time. Soon after Malga Fiavei there was a bike path separating to the left side form the dirt road. Spot can be racognized easily, there are log steps covered with some sand for trekkers. Anaconda follows that path down to Nago. This part of the trail was more demanding and I would recommend cross country riders to continue on the dirt road to Arco instead of the bike trail. From this point further Anaconda shows it's true nature.

Altitude and speed chart of the day.

Last parts of the trail was quite demanding even for a Garda veteran. Lots and lots of loose stones and sharp rock on endless paths. Trail is definitely ridable but on some parts I felt that I should have known better what is coming up. I bet that it pays to ride this part few times in a row to learn all the best lines and turns on the most difficult spots.

Finally we arrived to Nago where everyone of us ran out of water. That left us only one option: to ride a nice and easy dirt road towards Arco. Great day, total of 5 hours and 30 minutes of good riding. For me a hard biking day means that I'm obligated to eat ice cream as much I can swallow! Not a bad deal.

Freeriding at the Anaconda trail.

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Via Ferrata Rio Salagoni

Ferrata started nearby the parking.

It was time for the second ferrata. For today we selected relatively easy via ferrata Rio Salogni. Exceptional route is traversing in a cave like environment surrounded by a rich and a beautiful nature. The ferrata starts from outside the city of Dro and ends up nearby to the old castle of Drena.

Ferrata starts 600 meters from the parking at the road SP84. Starting point of the ferrata was like an entry point to a fantasy land that lies between smooth rock walls and a small rivulet at the bottom.

Finding the start of the ferrata was easy.

This ferrata is completely different from the others because it is traversing most of the time on a wall of a limestone rock valley. Temperature on the ferrata is almost 10 degrees less than at the surraunding countryside, wich makes it even more enjoyable.

Start of the ferrata.

Ferrata follows the rock walls by traversing slowly upwards. After about 20 minutes the first part of the ferrata ended into an outstanding green valley. The valley looks like a lost world because of the distant sunlight and smooth colors of green and brown. One of the most exciting locations that I have seen during the summers that I have spent at Lake Garda. From here the ferrata continued through a bridge built out of three iron cables. Via ferrata continues then after the bridge and climbs towards the castle of Drena.

Finally we ended up to the spot where guides usually take hteir groups towards the path that leads to the castle. That traditional path turns left over a small wooden bridge. But today we chose a different trail. We continued our adventure by travelling further the valley.

Mika on the cable bridge at the lost valley.

Trail continued with iron steps but without the cable. Most of the time it was ok, but on same cases connecting the via ferrata kit to the iron ladders seemed to be a good idea. Path continued for about 15 minutes until it ended to Drena.

At Drena we decided to take a look to the old castle. Castle was nicely renowed and it was also possible to visit at the tower to see the nice view to the Sarca walley. After visiting the castle we headed towards our car by following a nice but rocky trail.

Once we ware at the car everyone felt that the via ferrata was definitely a worthwhile to climb. Recommended because of the great cave like environment and beatiful scenery.

See our photos from Flicker.

Heta and Sami at the tower of the old castle of Drena.

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Multipitch day at Corno di Bo'

Corno di Bo'  is located nearby Torbole.
Parking wasn't convinient.

We decided that today we climb the first multipitch ascent. Our goal was to complete a 100 meters wall. When it comes to climbing, early mornings are becoming a standard because climbing during the afternoon is exhausting. Well, our goal was to start early but we couldn't keep the schedule. For some reason we forgot our second rope to the residence and we noticed that once we arrived to Corno di Bo'. There was only one option, to get back to the Villa Nicole and pick up the damn rope. That wasn't enough! It seemed that the holiday traffic starts to accumulate just after 9:00 and it was already 9:30 when we headed back. Basically the main road at Torbole was full of slow moving cars and the temperature started to increase slowly but surely.

Mika on the edge.

St that stage our schedule was badly late and we were afraid how the climbing would go. One lesson that we learned during our training session was that the sun starts to shine just from top of the Corno di Bo' around 10:00. That is annoying for the climber because reading the rock becames diffucult. Other lesson that we had learned was that the black tips of the climbing shoes are terribly hot once sun has rised above the wall.

Sami at the top anchor.

We still chose to climb. Luckily it looked like that the weather wasn't the hottest possible. Sky was partially covered by white clouds that blocked the sun enough to keep the temperature reasonable 30 celcius degrees.




Overall the climbing went  generally well. Personally I got some additional excitment at the second pitch by choosing slightly wrong ascent path. Traversing on top of a ledge of a polished slab without any visible holds or cracks nearby and having more than 4 meters of rope hanging out wasn't most encouraging experience.

View from the top.

 The climbing part wen't well and every one of our team got a 100 meters 5a multipich ascent. Number of the pitches surprised us slightly because topo listed only four pitches but we had to climb five pitched to complete the route number 6 "Norex".

Corno di Bo' had also additional bonus to offer, beach was only 50 meters away from the routes. A nice way to complete the very first multipitch adventure.

I'm proud of our team's progress and skills. We are ready for new challenges.

See photos from Flickr

Well done!

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Secret spot and a hidden trail - Punta dei Larici

Trail map from Riva to Punta dei Larici.

Short but still one of my favorite trails starts from the "secret spot" at Lake Garda. Punta dei Larici is located at 908 meters on a beautiful peak with a gorgeous view over the lake and down to Limone. There is still a price to pay to get up there. Reasonable climb of 800 meters sounds ok but the final 350 meters of the pedaling goes up on a steep dirt road. Biking uphill on a dirt road starts to feel an excercise when temperature rises up to 35 celcius degrees and the rider has a heavy trail bike.

Our trip started from Riva nearby the car tunnel on the western side of the city. Trail was closed around 2003 or 2004 because of heavy rains, but luckily it was re-opened and is now in use for trekking and mountainbiking purposes. This old trail is one of the most beautiful bike climbs at Lake Garda and during the early afternoon hours the road is usually full of tourists.

Heta, Jarkko, Sami and Mika posing at the secret spot.

After the scenery road ends the pedaling continues towards Pregasina. Road to Pregasina has good asphalt and is easy to pedal. Our trip's halfway hotel was at La Madonnina statue. From here the road continues towards Pregasina village that had the last spot to fill water reserves before Punta dei Larici. From Pregasina to the Punta dei Larici the road became more rough and steep.

Final spot Punta dei Larici found by turning left at the crossroads with trail 422bis. This secret spot offered a great place for relaxing and getting energy for the best part of the ride, trail down to Pregasina.

Our speeds and altitudes during the day.

Going down the main road would be a waste of effort in a place like this. Still most of the riders seems to go down to Pregasina via the main ascent trail 422bis. Over the years I have found a great alternative trail that crosses the main 422b few times and eventually ends up to the main road. This path is marked on some maps as a river or rivulet. To find the starting location we headed down via the 422bis but on a first steep right turn we headed down to woods. Starting point should be easy to find by keeping eye on the right side of the road. I'm not going explain more about the delails, let the video show the rest. Videos are still pending due our limited internet connection.

See photos from Flickr

Trail riding nearby Pregasina.

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Sport climbing at Beldevere

Top view from Beldevere towards Torbole, nice!

It is a time for the first sport climbing session at Lake Garda. Our goal was to find a crag to get more familiar with the local rock. Finding a spot for climbers who have been rock climbing less than a year is not an obvious task. For our team Beldevere was an excellent choice, because it has a lot of well bolted routes where you can pick any one of the lines without thinking too much about the grades.

So we packed our gear in the early in the morning to head towards Nago and Beldevere. Beldevere is easy to find, just head towards Arco from Nago by following the road SS240. There is a good parking on the left side of the road nearby the mast. Beldevere is the grey wall behind the woods on the opposite side of the parking slot.

Jarkko climbing route number 6 "Ale'Gher"  - 5a at Beldevere.

Once car was parked we headed to the crag by following a path that started on the other side of the road. Beldevere has two sectors, A and B. We headed to the sector A that has 20 routes from 3c to 6a. Length of the pitches varies between 8 to 12 meters.

It took about a 5 minutes to get to the crag and another 10 minutes to locate a free starting route. Beldevere seems to be relatively popular since at 9:30 half of the routes were reserved. Still it didn't felt too busy and switching the routes was easy and quick. Beldevere is mostly in shade so for the belayer it was a nice environment to belay. For the climber shade lasted up to 4 meters and after that climber became well exposed to the sun.

During the day we climbed between 6 to 9 routes per climber and everyone of us felt that Beldevere managed to fulfill our expectations.We can recommend the crag, if you want to climb 4-6 graded routes. But be aware, you are not going to be alone at the Beldevere during the August.

See photos from Flickr

Sami and Heta belaying routes 4 - "Fessa" (5a) and 6 - "Ale'Gher" (5a).

Parking on the left side of the road. Access via trail from the other side of the road.

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Multipitch training at Corno di Bo'

Corno di Bo' - Grey slab between Torbole and Navene

Corno di Bo' is an ideal slab for training multipitch climbing. It is a small crack located beneath a tunnel nearby Torbole. Crack has total of 10 routes and 7 of them has between 2 to 4 pitches. Grades are from 3a to 5c. Thou the crack is called multipitch training you can still ascend admirable 100 meters on four pitches. The biggest drawback is that the whole crack is a big slab and slightly polished from the bottom.

Climbing a 5a or 5c route is not diffiult for us, but polished slab is not our favorite type of climbing. Personally I feel more familiar on holds, cracks or lists on a straight or slightly negative walls, positive slab felt irritating. On the other hand I have to admit that the bolting was well done and secure for the multipitch training purpose.

We headed to the crack early in the morning to start with few single pitches. Soon we noticed that it was a good idea to come early. Pain in the climbing shoes increased at the same pace with the sunrise. Most of the pain came from the tips of the black climbing shoes when sun heated the rubber. After an hour or so at the straight sunshine climbing shoes on felt like an oven. At the end the pain was so terrible that it was impossible to keep shoes on.

Still the training went well and we accomplished our initial target to climb two pitches. We were more than ready for the next training session.

See photos on Flickr

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Via Ferrata del Colodri

Our initial plan was to take the final practice for the multipitch climbing at Corno di Bo. But as usual things didn't went as planned. After a busy morning and afternoon we had only few hours to do something fun. After short planning session we decided to climb an easy but nice Via Ferrata del Colodri.

Testing via ferrata kits.

Our trip started with a short walk through the city of Arco where the first goal was to buy a via ferrata kit. After 45 minutes of testing different kind of carabiners we were ready.  With the brand new equipment we headed towards the Arco camping area where from the via ferrata trail starts. At that stage time was around 18:00, leaving us about 2 hours to get to the top and back before the sunset.

Ferrata starts nearby the camping area.

Finding the via ferrata was relatively easy. First we headed to the Arco camping area and then located the trekking path number 431(bis). All trekking paths are marked with red and white stripes and numbers so locating the right path was easy. Then we just followed the ascending path with red markings towards the cliff. After a walk of 10 to 15 minutes we were at the starting point of the via ferrata.

Via ferrata was easy and it had a nice view over the Sarca valley. The climbing part took about 40 minutes. During the last third we had to rush a little because of an upcoming thunderstorm. Once we got our summit the thunderstorm reached Arco. Descending via ferrata was not an option. Being at the same altitude with the storm and connected to a lightning rod (steel via ferrata cables) wasn't a good idea.

Sami setting up his helmet camera.

I started to rush towards western side of the mountain to find the exit path that leads towards the Santa Maria di Laghel. To get down there the first mission was to locate a small path on leading down on the western side of the Colodri. Finding the path wasn't an easy task but finally after 15 minutes I managed to spot a narrow path hidden between the woods and bushes. At that stage we also "rescued" a german family from the storm by guiding them to the right way down. The exit path was narrow and steep with loose rocks. After about 80 - 100 meters we found a rope and then after descending that we continued the rocky path towards the main road. Sudden thunderstorm was the most thrilling part of this adventure.

See photos from Flickr
 See photos on our journal

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