Magic Woods and Brione

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by Leah.
Categories: Ascents, Climbing Trips, News, Switzerland.

Just had a fantastic trip in Magic Wood and Brione. After a trip in Easter was changed, because Magic Wood was covered in ice, we decided to have a summer trip and try and get better conditions. During our quick fly-by 5 day bouldering trip in Magic Wood I managed to climb two font7b+’s, happily only taking an hour of work to do both. We headed over to Brione, a famous but undocumented bouldering area in Ticino Switzerland, for a look around. During the scramble around the boulders we found a brilliant looking line, an overhanging 6 foot long crack into a shelf of slopers, leading into a series of looong moves to the high and scary top out. Without knowing the grade I confidently told everyone “This looks easy, we could warm up on this…” It turned out that despite some quite positive holds, the fierce body positions and unhelpful feet made this boulder incredibly powerful and like a competition boulder problem, good holds, but moving between them was impossible. It turned out it was font7c. With only the evening left before the flight home the next day, despite linking the lower section, I couldn’t get the top crux, a powerful left hand lock on slopers with a huge reach right to a moon shaped flatty. Frustrated but determined, I managed to convinced others to let me have another go in the morning and then face a mad rush to the airport in Milan. With a boulderers alpine start (about 9am) giving surprisingly poor conditions, about 20 degrees Celcuis and the crux slopers in the sun, I managed to get the crux move only once when working it in isolation. Then on probably my final go it all went and I managed to top out ‘The Bach Block’ font7c.