Three Sleepless Days in Paradise

Varazze is a small town in Liguria, wedged between the turbulent waters of the Mediterranean and steep sides of the hills that drop steeply into it. We came here to boulder but really its a place that offers a little something for everyone. It feels so cut off that if I hadn't driven through it I'd never have guessed that one of Italy's biggest financial centres is a mere stone's throw away. 

We drove down the towns main boulevard before branching onto a quite tight, compact road that mimicks the twists and turns of the valley. The bouldering is a ways out of town, like 6km or so. This feels like a fair distance when the roads are so small. We passed several small towns, where in one a resident seemed to curiously have a decaying renaissance era church with a grand facade in their own back yard.

We had a map showing where the boulders were but drove for a while and saw nothing. We pulled off on several shoulders to see if we could see anything. Nothing. The bouldering seemed to be very elusive. We contemplated setting up camp and then looking for it in the morning.

Then as we got a little higher we actually saw signs pointing to boulders. The climbing community in Liguria is so dedicated that they've set up a signed network of tracks between boulders.

That night I put my tent under the overhang of a huge freestanding boulder, fifteen odd metres high at its highest point and maintaining a round, comical like shape. I'd have to say its some of the best camping I've ever had. Water gurgles in the valley below. Countless boulders with quality problems litter the forest floor, carelessly flung at random by some unseen force.

But still that night I didn't sleep. Or the next. Or the one after. I have no idea why but I had a continuous period of close to two weeks where sleep was a scarce commodity.

Running on little sleep I was still excited to be where I was. I got up, had a bit of a climb and then went looking for the pool underneath the waterfall I had seen in a photo. I discovered and idyllic hidden spot directly below where we had camped but light did I know this was a mere shadow of the cascades further down the river.

Dan left for Ivrea that afternoon, after a few hours spent at a cafe in the city. He dropped me off back where we camped with a handful of things I thought I would need. Twelve litres of water. Some food I had bought. Climbing stuff. And little else other than my tent with sleeping things inside that was already pitched in the forest.

As I returned to my campsite I found some Italian climbers who were keen for me to climb with them. I spent the afternoon with them, pushing a very high, scary 6b with an exciting balancy reach right in the middle and a 6a+ traverse. I found their group dynamic interesting. One guy was sixty odd while the others where only around forty. They weren't father and sons as you might expect though. Just friends that climb together.

The grain of the rock and style of climbing is similar to the Gnaiss of Magic Wood in many ways. Aggressive climbing but not overly cruel on the fingertips. Like Magic Wood its buried deep in the forest, making climbing bearable in the heat of summer despite proximity to the ocean.

That night I packed some dinner and went for a long walk. I walked through an extensive field of boulders before popping out at the river 500m downstream of my campsite. And it took my breath away. I'd never seen a river like it. The water slid over shingle rapids before dropping into a thin slot which in turn gave way to a waterfall which plunged into a deep pool then disappeared over another waterfall.

I had dinner between the two waterfalls and took a long swim in the intermediary pool, the sun well and truly gone by now. I dived in then basically just floated, listening to the sounds of the water disturbing the serene waters of the pool, to the birds chirping, getting ready to call it a night.

With an hour of daylight still remaining, despite the sun long having disappeared behind the valley's wooded sides, I continued further down the river. I scrambled down next to the waterfall, throwing myself head first into the aerated pool at its base. I climbed back out and scrambled through a gorge onto a rocky, revealing an even bigger waterfall. I sat at the top of this and pushed myself off. I quickly gathered speed, hurtling down the convoluted gouge the water had managed to carve in the tight grained rock.

The waterfall deposited me in a deep pool, dunking me. I swam over to the other side to find a 4m high boulder casually balancing by the riverside. I climbed over a sketchy plank and scrambled up a slab to attain the top. I sat for a few moments, watching the sky becoming yellow. Then I got up and dived. The evening air felt cool as I plummeted downwards, my hands not yet protecting my face. I drew them together at the last moment, smoothly breaking the surface tension.

After a couple of minutes in the pool I dried off and headed home. Again, I didn't sleep. I thought doing something active and exhausting before bed might help but it simply didn't. I laid awake for hours, only dozing off a couple of times, watching the intermittent lights of the fireflies, clear against the dense canopy of the forest. 

The following day I didn't do much. I went for a swim between the two waterfalls in the morning and while I was there an Italian family showed up. I ate lunch with them and spent a couple of hours talking to them. They asked me if I knew Christian Core, a local climber that has put up many of the harder routes in Varazze and the whole town seems to know and respect. They were very nice people. As per usual they were very curious about what I was doing in Europe, how long for, etc and they were very surprised I was at what they thought to be an obscure spot all alone.

In the afternoon I swam at a different spot and read for a couple of hours, in repose on a crash pad by the water. By the time I wanted to climb it was pouring with rain so I ran back to camp and took shelter under the overhang, waiting for it to ease and dry up. By the time that happened night had fallen so again I tried to sleep. But to no avail. I had already been trying to sleep for an hour by the time Dan showed up at 9:30. Because he hadn't arrived early I was thinking he'd be arriving the following morning.

The next morning I showed Dan what we discovered by the river and as expected it kept us in Varazze until at least one o'clock. Not that this was a bad thing. But time was disintegrating until we had to be in Spain for Dan to meet the team a week before racing in his second world cup. So back to the road it was.