Spoleto Alpine Club

https://www.caispoleto.it/alpinismo.htm

 LOCATION - Piazzale Polvani, 08 (station square) Spoleto (PG) 06049 Tel Fax + 39 (0743) 220433 CP-52 Spoleto Center

Location opening: Friday from 18:00 to 20:00

https://www.caispoleto.it/iscrizione.htm

Registration

To join the Spoleto Section of the Italian Alpine Club it is necessary to fill in the registration form, join a passport photo and pay the membership fee for the category of membership - ordinary, family and young - for the current year .

Member Benefits

The membership and / or renewal of the CAI association, allows participation in all the initiatives of the association and those of the sister sections also guarantees:

1) preferential and facilitated treatment in the shelters of the CAI and other associations belonging to the UIAA;

2) insurance coverage for mountain rescue operations in Italy and Europe following mountain accidents both during group and individual activities;

3) the free sending of CAI periodicals "La Rivista" and "Lo Scarpone";

4) special discounts for the purchase of social publications such as guides and manuals.

Registration validity

The association with the Spoleto Section of the CAI is valid for one year. (01 January - 31 December)

The only insurance coverage for mountain rescue operations is valid until 31 March of the year following the registration date.

Social Share

The membership fee can be paid to the Spoleto Section by going to the section office from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm on Friday.

Not having activated the POS service yet, the payment can be made by cash or bank check.





"A" .... like mountain climbing and climbing

Short and incomplete historical notes on Spoletan climbing.



Today, Free Climbing is fashionable on vertical walls, often overhanging, where the difficulties are always very high and only those who train systematically can try to pass. These walls, however, are almost never found in the high mountains but in the valleys often close to roads and villages (Ferentillo, Pale) you can reach them easily at any time of day, whatever the weather. The climbing routes are protected with bolts (a type of "stoppers" stuck into the rock with a drill) that make the progression on the wall safe and free of serious risks for the safety of climbers. This way of visiting the walls, which today is an end in itself, is not new, the "climbing gyms" already existed many years ago but were used to prepare for climbs on the great mountains, where nothing was prepared and often the first to pass. We talk about the beginning of the seventies, in Spoleto climbing, the one in the high mountains, was an almost unknown activity, only some young people from the Spoletino Speleological Group, three or four people in all, had ventured on the walls and canals of the Monti Sibillini, often with inadequate and artisanal equipment.

However, their enthusiasm managed to "infect" some members of the newly formed CAI section of Spoleto and a partner, more determined than the others, thought well of going to the Dolomites to learn about and train themselves in the techniques and equipment needed to face the walls with adequate margins safety. At the end of this experience Mauro (for the record this is the name of the member) returned to the Section with a lot of qualification as "Mountaineering Instructor" and so the first sectional mountaineering courses started. The first years were an adventure, we had no experience, we did not know the mountains, we did not know the streets, we lacked someone to ask advice on where to go, when to go, despite everything plan, floor, year after year our terrain of "adventure" expanded from the Sibillini to the Gran Sasso, to the Alps and then and then ... but these are other stories that we will tell later.

1 - 1973 first steps

To begin with we were training on some rocks near Monte Fionchi, nothing special, eight ten meters high, a small wall set up, an "open dihedral", a small "chimney", they were classic difficulties: third, fourth, fourth +. To try the abseiling we went to the Giro dei Condotti, the maneuvers were the classic ones of the Piaz method with the rope passing between the legs and then turning around the bust generating frightening friction. He climbed with heavy boots with rigid soles and the technique of adherence was not practicable, the feet did not have the necessary sensitivity to feel the supports, it was necessary to carry the weight of the body on the tip of the boot which, so urged, he could make a grip even on small supports. In winter the Sibillini mountains are severe, often unpredictable and therefore dangerous, passing close to the cross memorialized by Zilioli, an Ascoli mountaineer who died due to exhaustion after completing the first winter ascent of the "Canalino" of Pretare, our desire to facing the great cliffs of the Carrier in the coldest season was put in serious difficulty.

The basic technical equipment was: we had made numerous trips to Rome from "Montanucci sport" to equip us with an ice ax, crampons, gaiters, gloves, etc. but what was missing were the basic notions for the use of such gadgets. At twenty years of age, however, common sense was not enough, so we learned the basics directly on the wall, paying with risks that after so many years seem to us and are crazy. So we climbed the infamous "Canalino di Pretare" in winter, the "Grande Funnel", the "Cresta del Galluccio", the direct to the "Scoglio dell'Aquila" etc.

In the summer of 1979 we found ourselves for the first time in front of the Mont Blanc and frightened, clumsy and embarrassed by so much grandeur, we walked among the glaciers suffering the reproaches of Lino Fornelli, manager of the Monte Bianco refuge in Val Veny, for the CAI of Spoleto was the first real Green Week.

SERGIO MATURI