Climbing at Monte Guadagnolo

3 November 2007

A big, intense weekend begins. Today Monte Guadagnolo. Tomorrow the Monte d'Ocre loop…

D.R., Paolo and I decide to go to Monte Guadagnolo to get familiar with the ropes. Paolo is an experienced rock climber and for some years now he has been helping me get to know the world of the crag, which nonetheless never manages to become my main passion.

The urge to go to the crag comes from the need to learn how to handle ropes, karabiners, the harness. I have already been to Monte Guadagnolo other times; I know the rock it is made of, the eroded limestone and its deep jugs. And then the area is so spectacular. On the clearest days you can even see the sea. Monte Guadagnolo, together with Monte Morra and Sperlonga, are the three great climbing playgrounds of the Romans. It's easy to find a certain… “crowding” at the foot of the walls on Saturdays and Sundays. The most beautiful image I have ever seen was a wife (not in the least interested in climbing) busy belaying her passionate husband on a “moulinette” (top-rope). Scenes of moving family love which, in this natural setting, give you even more food for thought.

We stop under a rock no more than 20 metres high, whose top is reached by way of two very wide ledges. We decide that this is our first pitch. A look at the guidebook and we discover that the route is called Hantayo and is graded 6a over a length of 30 metres. In fact, on closer inspection, we realise that the chain near the last ledge belongs to the “nameless” route immediately to its right.

Paolo starts up the face. He looks like a spider, moving lightly and methodically, looking for the right holds. I belay him under the somewhat puzzled gaze of D.R.… on his face, a big question mark. We are here to practise belaying; ours is just a “first contact”.

Paolo keeps climbing the Hantayo route as far as the last ledge then, instead of turning left towards a short chimney and a steep arête, he moves off to the right where, a few metres along, he finally finds the chain. He clips the rope into the karabiner and comes down.

“It's not that easy after all”… he comments.

D.R.'s face screws up into a grimace… I already know the route; I tie in and climb by the same line. I'm at the chain without too much trouble and let myself be lowered on the “moulinette”, realising that it is easier to come down where there are no ledges than when you have to launch yourself into the void from a small platform.

Now it's D.R.'s turn, and he shows some signs of apprehension. It's his first experience at a crag, but as I always say, to learn to swim you have to jump in the water.

With slow, determined movements D.R. instinctively clings to the rock; his effort to stay anchored is somewhat excessive, but his excellent sporting fitness means he feels no tiredness at all in his arms. When he reaches the chain, passing to the left of the route and choosing a very personal line of ascent among the shrubs, D.R. finds himself on the infamous ledge; from there he looks down and has his first real, tangible experience of “the void”.

For a few minutes he stays petrified (and never was the word more apt), then he decides to climb back down the way he came up.

He can't bring himself to let go into the harness. We keep telling him to sit back, but the survival instinct wins over the need to sit in the harness and he starts climbing down among the shrubs. For the last stretch, though, he is forced to taste the thrill of being lowered on the “moulinette”. D.R. is shocked. For someone like him, used to keeping his feet on the ground, the idea of the void, experienced in this lightning-fast way, is the antithesis of the “meditative” experience of the mountains we have had until now.

Only a certain continuity will build greater confidence with the void, the rock and the wild nature of a crag. I am convinced that this will come in useful in the hardest moments, when we go back to our high summits, to our simple routes.

We spend the day exploring the “il Fanciullo” route, a 4b pitch. Here we manage to find our own dimension much more. Even D.R. seems to be enjoying himself belaying Paolo, who naturally, given his experience, opens the route for us as leader of the rope team.

This is mountains too. Here it must be said that D.R. and I are rather in tune. The crag does not allow those long stretches of meditation and intimate reflection that the long hikes we are used to give us.