Ice Climbing in Cogne

Italy, February 2023

by Jill Hudson

I am sure I’m not the only one who is eager to adventure, but lacks that natural confidence and surety of foot which go conveniently hand in hand with sporting endeavours.

Why am I keen to reach the tops of mountains, when I have the adrenalin set more suited to a knitathon – with cake? Confidence is something I’ve been working on in the last few years; it has been a slow journey, but with incremental improvements that I haven’t noticed until I look back. I remember vowing to my partner that I’d never be a trad lead climber, but here I am trucking on with the odd V diffs and one memorable pitch of HS under my belt. Onwards and upwards (yes, pun intended!). This isn’t an article about summitting uncharted peaks or remote survival adventures, it’s about ice climbing in Cogne, how it was possible for even me to get into, and how easy it was to achieve. I did take my knitting but, alas, didn’t have time to do any.

This progressed out of an AAC(UK) winter mountaineering course I went on run by Orange Mountaineering last January. Five days in Scotland, and two missing toenails later, I was well on the way to feeling more confident about snow and crampons and spindrift.

It actually rained a lot and the snow line was high, but find it we did. I was really impressed by how the team at Orange Mountaineering navigated the challenging conditions and tailored our days to suit. Tuesday, definitely not a mountain day, we went to the Ice Factor at Kinlochleven for some ice climbing. I really did like it. Dry tooling in the afternoon told me that I can stand on the CRAZIEST things in crampons, which was an eye opener.

The course was incredibly valuable in lots of ways; if conditions had been perfect I wouldn’t have learnt some important lessons. Gloves, gloves, gloves. Everything got wet. I took spares of everything but needed spares of spare spares, especially as in our accommodation nothing seemed to get dry. It’s one thing getting hideously cold feet, you can still walk for that day and walk out, but as soon as you lose dexterity in your fingers, you can’t do anything. Gloves are at the top of the list for me now. Conditions were not desperately cold, but in other ways they were quite extreme. From belay jackets, to goggles at the top of the Ben, to quick gear changes and bag management, it was a major equipment test, and we came to the conclusion that the reason we didn’t know the extremes of our gear was that usually when it is weeing down outside on a weekend and your hike is going to be underwater – you change your plans. Food for thought.

So, when an ice climbing trip to Cogne in the Aosta valley in northern Italy came up at my local climbing club, after my initial “Hmm, what if everyone’s much better than me, what if the blokes don’t want to climb with me?” – I did go. Cogne is acknowledged as being a good place for beginner ice climbers because there are a number of places where you can gain access to the bolted belays and top rope. Excellent. The point being, that some people gloss over, it’s generally not best to do a couple of top ropes and say hey, that’s a doddle, I’ll lead a pitch now. Even the professionals say you do not want to fall. The ice screw, as long as it holds, is there to save your life but it probably won’t stop you from getting injured. But that’s all fine as we were top roping here, working on technique until we were happy to take an easy lead. Which is actually really liberating from the pressure to lead in trad – here I could play.

We went in early February this year (2023). Two of us were AAC(UK) members and all five were members of the South Devon Mountaineering Club. We were climbing frozen waterfalls and sometimes artificial crags where water had been piped in and trickled down. Although conditions weren’t perfect (climate change is taking its toll and it had been a warm winter), we somehow managed to catch a week where temperatures were minus for most of the day. We were very lucky as it was dry for the whole time and in the sun, and even when my hands got wet in one of my (now) multiple pairs of good mountain gloves, somehow they were OK. The climbing ropes were so frozen I had to wrestle them through the belay device, but my fingers were still moving until the sun went in (and the change of gloves came). It was really fascinating to compare to Scotland.

The guide is the Oxford Alpine Club, Cogne – selected ice climbs. A good place to start is the roadside crag at Moline, just five minutes outside Cogne, where you can abseil in to the belay from the roadside barrier and set up your top rope. The Cascadas de Lillaz is another great place (GREAT coffee shop in the car park, €4 a day to park, bonus!) where you can access the tiers from the footpath to set up your anchors. Everyone I met was really friendly. We did have some leaders in our group so we climbed a couple of multipitches. Some of these spots get quite busy so be prepared to get friendly at the belays and take a bag with spares and snacks, there can be some waiting.

How do you practise for your ice climbing trip? Well, living in Cornwall, and not Scotland, I had to practise in my armchair on Youtube. Will Gadd has made an excellent Black Diamond tech tips series. He is now my hero.

Cogne is a lovely old town, a great place to wind down after your day, and with an ice screw sharpening service at the Spar shop to boot. You can find cheaper Airbnbs towards Sarre where we stayed. Quite a bit of driving in and out, but a more direct route to Gran Paradiso in case you want to do some mountaineering. With ski resorts and Langlauf tracks dotted around, it’s a veritable winter sport wonderland. You need loads of gloves, and more time to take everything in. I’m going back next year.

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