Cris-tal Behind The Dalmazzi

Monts Rouges de Triolet from the valley

Last Monday morning Alison Culshaw and I headed over to Italy and drove up the Val Ferret to walk into the Ref. Dalmazzi. The plan was to walk in, do a climb in the afternoon, stay in the hut, then do 'Kermesse Folk' on the Monts Rouges de Triolet, with an early start the next day... So that was plan A! How often do you get to do plan A? When stuff happens, you get to plan B, C or Z! So what could go wrong...

Alison on pitch 1 of Cris-tal

When we got to the hut, we found the hut had closed for the end of the season, the day before! The guardian was busy putting the rubbish together for the helicopter collection, and closing up. We didn't bring a stove, evening meals, breakfast, or anything for a bivvi. On the up side we would save the money to pay for the Hut and meals... We decided to go for our afternoon climb on Cris-tal, and later decide whether to walk back to the car in the evening.

Pitch 3

Alison on pitch 5

Monts Rouges de Triolet above Alisons head

Cris-tal turned out to be pretty good, with some good pitches. Now we had to decide what to do about the closed hut.... Luckily the guardian told us we could use the winter room, which looked pretty comfortable, but what would we do about food?...

An easy multi ab back to the floor