In February we eyed possible routes across this plateau to the foot of Corno Grande’s southwest shoulder.
The path led to a col, Sella Monte Aquila, on another high plateau at the bottom of our ridge. An easy path hewn into the hillside up to Sella Monte Aquila On this occasion there was an obvious easy path hewn into the hillside beneath our ridge, a path which some people were even biking up. There were no footprints to follow, and we had to take an alternative route along a wonderfully narrow snow ridge. It was buried under metres of snow, and in fact had become a ski run. In February there was no sign of the Via Normale. In February the road was impassable, and we took a cable car crowded with skiers up from Fonte Cerreto 1000m below. The standard route, or Via Normale, starts on the south side from a place called Campo Imperatore, a vast grassy high-altitude plain, with a hotel and ski resort at its top end, 2100m above sea level. The one exception is Corno Grande, which is Italy’s Snowdon, but without the train. We’ve often had mountains pretty much to ourselves, which would be crowded with people back home. The Italians don’t seem to have a hill-walking culture like we have in the UK. The mountain that had given us such trouble back in January and February became an enjoyable appetiser in what was to be a feast of mountain hiking. I started my outdoor journey as a hill walker, and I will remain one for as long as I can walk. Winter climbs with uncertain conditions and a measure of risk become straightforward hill walks, but that’s fine.
The Apennines are a different range in summer, so different that they could be on another continent. You what, you climbed that thing? Piss off! Corno Grande from Campo Imperatore. We were determined to get up Corno Grande, and after Edita returned to Rome after her two-month stint in Nepal, assisting the World Food Programme (WFP) with their response to the earthquake, we set off immediately for our third attempt. The Apennines in that part of Italy (Abruzzo) receive several metres of snow in winter, slowing our progress and on one occasion producing unsuitable avalanche-laden slopes. In previous posts I’ve written about our efforts to climb some peaks in the Apennines earlier this year, including two attempts on the highest mountain in peninsula Italy, 2912m Corno Grande, once from the north side and again from the south, and an attempt on 2348m Monte Sirente.Īlthough these were enjoyable reconnaissance climbs, we failed to reach the summit of either peak for reasons which can broadly put down to the snow conditions.
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