New icefall in Val Budria

ILLUSION IN VAL BUDRIA by Cristian Candiotto

What can I say, I couldn't have asked for a better way to kick the new year off than with a great first ascent together with an old climbing partner of mine. I'd checked out this gully in summer and asked other local climbers to find out whether something interesting had ever formed in this beautiful and isolated valley which I'd often been to in the past, but I'd always been unlucky: I'd have to wait. And so I waited for the right moment: a rainy autumn, little snow in winter and the right temperatures... I phoned Marcello: "Hey, how cold is it a Tartano?" "-2°C" he replied. "Right, tomorrow's the day." And this is how Illusion came into being.

Why Illusion? Because from down in the valley you simply can't believe that it's up there, when you first see the drip it looks huge, but as you approach it becomes shorter and shorter. But when you finally start to climb you realise it's not so short after all. An illusion therefore that continues to shift reality.

TOPO: Illusion, Val Budria