Little Micheluzzi - Grade 14 (300m)

MP & RA arrived at the base of the cliff at 9:30am after fighting off ill-tempered marmots guarding the base of the cliff. By the time we had our gear on & ready to start another guide turned up with a punter & was off lot a shot ! Good for us as we could follow, right ? Well following Italian guides had it's scary bits. On the 3rd pitch we saw the guide waltz up the arete & disappear around the corner with not much gear in place. Oh well, looks easier enough and it was except MP was pretty nervous going around the corner 100+ metres above the ground with a psycho thread for projection. We survived & settled our nerves by RA romping up the 4th pitch with no gear in place. 5th pitch was a nice traverse across into a single piton belay - oh joy. Then pitch 6 was the crux with good exposure stepping out of cave with 200m of air below - great stuff I (MP) must say. The pitch curved in a reverse 'C' to end up above the original cave - again, single piton. 6th pitch was the best in MPs mind. 7th pitch was another 40+ metres of grade 13/14 to final solid belay piton. We then scrambled up the grassy slope the meet the descent track. Took another 2 hours to descend to the car - narrow exposed track, via Ferrata in some places, couple of abseils & march down the scree slope. Not fun ! Back at the car at 3:30pm ! (we thought it was about 1:30pm - lol - fat slow old bastards). The evening consisted of re-hydrating & re-fuelling (two pizzas & 1 pasta for MP).