Fidget's Adventures: October 2007 - Climbing

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

October 2007 - Climbing - Corsica

Dan at Chisu

I had a good week. Didn't find the place as inspiring in general as Sardinia, but it was pretty cool, and totally different granite to in this country. Everything seemed to work out quite smoothly (the odd glitch or two, like looking for the apartment in totally the wrong place), but the crags were easy enough to find etc.

A lot of the crags are a red granite, some walls with lots of knobbles and pillars, some walls less featured, and some walls with this huge tufonis - eroded holes. The one crag we went to nearer the coast (I Curriali) was a beautiful bleached white granite (like the pictures of Capo Teste in Sardinia), and had cracks, slabs and large scoopy flakes, all with amazing friction. From browsing the web after we got back, it looks like there's plenty more of that stuff along the coast, but mostly bouldering.

Matt at Chisu

I was pleased that I not only found the standard I was at when I was giving sport my all 18 months ago, but managed to push it up a notch. Was nice to get some sunshine too - not a cloud in the sky most days, and still quite toasty when we were up in the mountains. Some cloud rolled in when we were at Bavella and almost obscured the crag, but that was just atmospheric.

The drives to some of the crags are quite scenic, going down these long windy mountain gorges. We certainly explored the island quite well. Most places are doable in a day trip, but it's a reasonably long one if you have to take some of the more windy roads.

Dan and Rich at Restonica Premier Ecole

I think my favourite place was Richiusa, with the fantastic sheer sided canyon, cliffs rising right out of the water at the base - which is a serene pale blue, and totally still.

Snorkeling was cool - 2 metres of the beach, and totally surrounded by fishes. I lost blood to one of my fingers though, and it took about 10 mins to come back, which was kind of worrying!