Arco 'Italy' By Keith Sharples.

Arco, for all I know, could well be Italian for great rock climbing in a fantastic setting. Sandwiched between Lake Garda and the Dolomites in northern Italy, Arco gets much better weather than the ‘Dollis’ to the north and hence it’s a popular wet-weather climbing alternative for those forced out of the mountains. That said, there’s a long-standing tradition of hard rock climbing at Arco. So much so that Arco took to competition climbing like a duck takes to water. Annually, since 1986, Arco has hosted an international climbing competition; the organisers no doubt spurred on by the local traders keen to attract yet more tourist business into the area. However, the early competition days were a tad wayward with routes being created on the ‘competition’ crag and trees being cut down to enable better visibility for spectators etc.. Since then, thankfully, things have settled down a lot and such extreme measures have been consigned to the bin.

So what’s the deal at Arco. Well, within an hour’s drive of the town there are thirty or so crags ranging from major sport climbing venues to more traditional crags giving multi-pitch nut/friend-protected routes. Pigeon-holing individual crags as either sport or traditional is somewhat misleading as many of the so-called traditional crags have bolted, or ‘spit’ protected, pitches/routes as well as routes which rely on nuts/friends etc.. However, sport climbing has become big at Arco so much so that it now provides the vast majority of the routes in the area.

Nor was the Arco competition the only catalyst that initiated the development of sport climbing in the area. The early eighties saw the local activists keen to climb shorter, and harder routes, the like of which were being climbed in other European countries. Local climbing historians would tell you that Messrs Bassi, Mariacher and Zanolla were responsible for much of the early development.