Melloblocco 2009 - Italy

Here it is, we made it alive to Val di Massino, for the huge (2000 participants) bouldering event Mellobloco. Emma was supposed to join the event as well, but unfortunately injured herself the week end before... So we will have to catch up a next time.

We were quite unprepared with Stephanie, with no bouldering mat and no info af what was Mellobloco was about. So we rope climbed the first day, in order to get used to the local rock: an excellent granite! Not being used to this kind of climbing, we found the grades tough, as the rock harsh for the skin! We registered for the event the next morning, but we still had no clue about what was the contest about*, and we did some trad climbing in the morning. We tried some bouldering in the afternoon, but it was a bit annoying to have no mat...

We had to wait the next morning to get a bouldering mat from Cassin (Stephanie's sponsor) to do some proper climbing. Steph' managed to send 5 boulders of the 8 of the women contest, and won 95euros of price money... In my case, I was playing around on easy-ish climbs, being miles away of getting any money. Indeed, the males easiest boulder was graded something like 8a or V11... What, me, a big girl??? Nevertheless, it was fun to climb with many people from everywhere in Europe, and I'd like to go back there to climb some of the fantastic trad routes in the valley, up to 800m tall...

* I think that is called Italian organization, hehe