gallic

gallic

Thursday, July 19, 2012

17-19.07.2012 - Triglav Alpine Climbing


The last couple of days were amazing. I had some alpine experience but Triglav, Julian Alps, really challenged me. After a long drive on Monday, Wolfgang and I bought the necessarily foods as well as some equipment we needed for the climbing itself. After dinner, we chose to spend the night in our sleeping bags next to where the car was parked.
We woke up early, had breakfast and were at the start of our route at around 7 in the morning.
photo at beginning of approach (me, Wolfgang)
The route itself (sandija wisiaka, 5) was an adventure from beginning to end. As I climbed the first pitch, a stone avalanche cascaded down the cliff. I could hear the stones falling right behind me. Lightly traumatized I we continued climbing the route. In some pitches there were extremely large run-outs, most probably because we managed to go wrong a couple of times. It had taken just under 10 hours of climbing and searching for us to finish the route. However, the adventure was far from over. After the completion of the route we had to walk up about 200 meters. We managed to go wrong in our choice of path and had to turn around at some point. In a slight drizzle we then had to improvise our way up. We were walking up steep couloirs and climbing risky passages in our walking shoes. After lots of struggling we found the marked descent and we could make our way down.

sandija wisiaka
Right at the moment where the last spark of daylight dissapeared, we arrived at the parking place where we had dinner and dove in our sleeping bags immediately after.

Having chosen an easier route for the next day (Slovenian route, 3+) we aloud ourselves to sleep until 6 in the morning. With our sleeping and cooking gear in our packs we climbed the long and mostly uninteresting Slovenian route attached to 30 metres of rope and with little or no protection. The route was interesting because we got to test out our endurance and route finding skills.
Completing the route was followed by walking and climbing to the top of the Triglav. Then we walked down the other side and stayed overnight next to a hut.

overview of Slovenian route


Slovenian route topo
Our last day we spend walking back to the car and attampting a first ascent of a crack climb we discovered (difficulty UIAA about 7+, 6c). It was impossible to place protection in the upper part so I decided to only do the route in top-rope. It was a nice ending to the climbing we had done.


Next goal, the sphinx!


view in the first route

our meal after all was done


Triglav Alpine Climbing