The great thing about speaking at international events is that they take me to places that I might never otherwise visit and I end up climbing at new and interesting crags.
For me the latest such event was the International Mountain Summit in Brixen/Bressanone in north Italy. Stephen Venables was there too and we had a great morning climbing together with Miriam Dudek from Switzerland.
Much as we managed to borrow a guidebook with route topos these seemed not to be 100% necessary as the local crag was daubed with white dotted lines apparently marking the line of some of the routes.
Having climbed a three pitch route the question of how to descend arose. Miriam suggested descending a big diameter cable stretching the height of the crag. But she was outvoted by Stephen and I who brought traditional English values to the occasion and preferred a walking descent.
It appeared though that walking was not a popular way of descending from this sport crag. Soon the thrashing through brambles was becoming as challenging as the climb had been. Ultimately we ended up with Stephen trying to tyrolean traverse along a cable leading to the relatively easy ground of an apple orchard.
The day was memorable and we laughed a lot. These things are important in life.
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