Читать книгу Canyoning in the Alps. Graded routes in Northern Italy and Ticino, Austria, Slovenia and the Valais Alps онлайн

78 страница из 80

A little reminder of how much water should be running through this canyon

PARKING A

Head up the SS33 into Switzerland. Once in Gondo, take the first left after the bell tower. Descend the hill and park in the large parking area. Don’t forget passports if coming from Italy!

GETTING TO PARKING A FROM PARKING B

By car

Climb the hill on hairpins. Where the road levels out and flanks the river, a track heads off left. Park here.

On foot

Follow the road up, cutting the corners where possible on a well-defined path.

APPROACH FROM PARKING B

Just after the track leaves the road, follow a path down to the river. If feeling inclined, you could wander a bit further up the road to a path signposted to Bällega (alternative start). This path leads to the river in a couple of minutes. Aside from the first pool (possible jump), there is nothing else of interest.

Certain pools lend themselves well to big jumps

DESCENT

The canyon is a sequence of waterfalls and beautiful plunge-pools, quite open in nature. The exception is the final pitch, two pitches after the rock arch. This is an aquatic, twisting tube, whose base cannot be seen from above. It can be rigged dry around to the left (or even avoided altogether), but it is much more fun to rig in the water. This is done in two stages – a 10m pitch to a set of P-hangars around to the right (not visible from above), followed by a 27m pitch to a spray-lashed shelf. From here a slippery and awkward 6m down-climb gains safe ground. The remainder of the canyon is walking and scrambling alongside the river. On reaching the slabs above the last waterfall, a path around left heads back to the main road. The slabs can be abseiled (two 35m pitches), but the single anchor was damaged at the time of descent.