Exploration of the fabulous cliffs on the west coast of Italy by climbers and rock climbers has led to the emergence of 25 new exotic trad routes from 5a to 7a difficulty. The area is located north of Capo Pecora, on the west coast of Sardinia.
Unfortunately, choosing good climbing conditions is not always easy due to the proximity of the cliffs to the sea, so you should avoid days when the sea is rough due to strong winds and the waves flood the cliffs to a height of several meters.
In winter, the sun quickly dries the cliffs, which provides good friction for passing the route, and the sea is often calm than in summer. In summer, this area has its advantages – you can not only climb, but also swim in crystal clear water, but it also has its disadvantages – the rocks are still in the shade in the morning, not having had time to dry out after the night tide, and it is too hot to climb during the day.
There are no pitons or hooks on any of the routes, only your own belay (nuts, kames). But there are several routes that are bolted for top belay, for example on the “Big Ben” tower in the Bing Bong sector.
The Capo Pecora area is still being explored and many sectors are still virtually untouched by climbers. In any case, here is a summary of the latest activity, which is concentrated mainly on the main tower of “Big Ben”, 60 meters high, and routes up to 3 pitches long. It became known that the tower was first climbed by Matteo Casula, Davide Pili and Filippo Mereu in the spring of 2003. Recently Maurizio Oviglia, often accompanied by his daughter Sara and Andrea Mannas, have added another 10 new routes on this tower, one of the most interesting of which is “Blu Trad”, which has three pitches of difficulty up to 7a+/7b and about which Maurizio and Sara made an excellent documentary. Marco Marrosu from Sassari has established “Brivido Freddo” (5b, 2 pitches), and recently Maurizio Oviglia, Andrea Mannias and Massimo Gessa have added many difficult single-pitch routes up to 7b (E5) including the magnificent “Poseidon” (7a).
Bing Bong is a small sector along with other sections of this long coastline – a place for new routes such as “Nel regno di Onan”, established by Marco Marrosu and Isabella Zudda. The route “Pecora Puzzle”, with its crack of the same name, was first climbed by Gianluca Piras. Maurizio Oviglia and Giampaolo Mocci They also laid the first route in the Terra Promessa sector, which they called “Stress da Ufficio”, and which is 60 meters of climbing of difficulty 6a.
Photo: Sara Oviglia and Maurizio Oviglia
Source: ALP Project