Cosmic Frogs near Piz Boe

Recently Sharas decided to join our club and we somehow had to test him. It isn't about testing if he is strong enough, but more if his soul is pure enough to join Silelis. So we took him onto survival trip, to see if he survives. We had been thinking - if he survives, then we admit him into the club. If no, then nobody to admit - no man, no trouble so to say.
We took him to ferrata Cesare Piazzetta rated 5C out of 5C (scale 1-5, A-C). The challenges he faced were:
*He had broken his leg in winter
*It was his first ferrata
*Scary moving bridge without wood plates (he almost failed there)
*Headache from lack of oxygen at 3152m altitude
*It was very cold to sleep in 2800m altitude
*Cosmic frog was attacking the tents and disturbing the sleep
*No ketchup, only mayonnaise (I almost did not survive this myself)

So we put him in a very sticky situation as you see, and he survived! Congratulations to our new member!

Never Ever

It appears that very little people know, that milk is harmful for hedgehogs, so I decided to make a note on it. It is the worst thing you can give to a hedgehog. Although they drink it so pleasantly! They seem not to have any ferments for it and feel very terrible after drinking it. They get terrible diarrhea for several days and often can die due to dehydration and weakness. So never ever give milk to hedgehogs!

Flower Children

As if beer and other good stuff wasn't enough, Silelis declares that it also loves flowers. Of course, not the dead flowers you can buy in the market or from the Indian guys who stroll through the bars. Silelis loves only living mountain flowers (to love city flowers is the same as to agree that lazy town pigeon is a bird, which is not longer true). Today we introduce one flower we have seen in the mountains (and were totally taken aback by it's beauty and loneliness), the black vanilla orchid (Nigritella nigra).

In the site alpineflowers.com we find the following information: "Black vanilla orchid has, as the name already suggests, a very strong vanilla scent. In German vernacular, it is also called "drop of blood" because it was once believed, that the plant's strong scent was the cause of nosebleeds." Very exciting indeed, and very unfortunate we did not check out the smell of the flower! Who would guess that a mountain flower can smell of vanilla?

But we are not the only ones fascinated by this orchid, Jean-François Charles has composed a piece of music called "Nigritella nigra", which you can find here.

FC gang Climbing Latemar

The previous weekend we decided it is time to start our hiking trips to the mountains. Last year we discovered that hiking without overnight in the mountains is not proper hiking, therefore we would not waste our time and planned to come back on Sunday. We tried to call Raivis to get back the tent he borrowed from us, but it seems he had carelessly left Bolzano for a while without returning it before leaving. We chose Latemar, as we had never been there and it is not too high.
We picked s.18, which comes to bivouac Mario Rigatti. The weather was ok, not sunny and therefore not tiresome. At about 2.200 we reached first snow patches. Here we met a couple of 'loosers', who we think returned without crossing the second snow patch.


Later we were glad they returned as the path was crazy. Many places covered with snow, which we tried to avoid. You know, when it falls in to the shoes, it melts and that's not the most pleasant feeling in the world. There were parts where we had to use our climbing skills. It felt as we were going an easy ferrata, just that someone stole the cord.
We saw the bivouac in the pass and feared it will be difficult to descend, as the path went steeply down towards the pass. After some more climbing we reached it!

We were sitting in this luxurious bivuac, drank the beer and we could not understand how it was possible to descend the way we did. No path was seen, and it was so steep!

We had a very nice dinner, a bottle of wine. When the darkness fell around, we went to sleep. As the pot we filled with snow in the evening still contained some snow in the morning, we guessed it wasn't very warm inside. In the morning we had a soup and packed to leave as soon as possible as we knew the weather will deteriorate. After an hour we reached the upper valley where the ferrata Campanili di Latemar ends. It was a place where one could easily forget it was June: lots of snow was already there and it started snowing!

Dangerous dreams

If I was sincere, I would agree that the blog is dormant due to

• recent heavy rains in Bolzano and too few climbing events
• different deadlines and exams that make people to forget what Silelis spirit is;
• the reporters are as scarce as hen's teeth

But no, I think it is happening because one of our climbers has injured her hand while sleeping and can barely type now!

Dressing up for climbing

As the season of climbing outdoors is getting a faster and more active pace, climbers in Silelis are thoroughly exploring the wardrobes for clothes suitable for climbing. One has to consider both comfort and elegance, which is not easy. While browsing the (THE) internet and investigating what climbing clothes should be like, I found some very attractive item to buy:

the Prana Sugar mini skirt!
The skirt could be useful in many ways:
1) comfortable to wear even in very hot weather
2) suitable also for hiking
3) would attract more spectators in Kindergarten, so we could collect some money for the beer
4) the boys would have to fulfill their part of the bet, made last year!

Sadness without limits in Silelis

This is how sad we are that the climbing hall in Bolzano is now open only in the evenings. Badly enough, climbing hall in Merano works only on the days when some of our climbers have karate training! We are very very sad.