Today we went to the zoo. We saw lots of animals and had lots of fun. My favourate was the Moose and the Dinosaur….
I’ve been getting into my drytooling recently. I love that you can climb outside in the rain without getting wet and its a great way to get strong for the coming winter’s mixed climbing. I’m heading up in to Scotland in the next two weeks and its been really good to get training on the tool’s. I’ve been to the Zoo in Sallanches before drytooling but now I have a lot of psyche for this venue and plenty of projects to chip (no pun intended) away at.
It’s a great venue with lots of choice with the 23 routes with grades from M4 to M13+. The rock is bad as you might expect and for the most part you’re pulling on drilled holds. It’s quite dusty (I keep finding rocks in my eyes when I get back from sessions) as its always dry under the massive overhang so expect your ropes to get trashed. There’s plently of insitu quick draws which means you can try stuff to your hearts (or forearms) content with little worry about getting your draws back.
Here’s a topo from Jeff Mercier’s blog, there’s also another (different) one for it in one of the “cascade du glace” guides (maybe ‘tome 2’ ?) with a description of the approach which can be particularly problematic onsite, probably the crux in fact.
Here’s some more photos of it…
Don’t forget your fruitboots or mono crampons. Its a lot more fun with them. See you down there on a rainy day!
0 Comments