Although the Aosta Valley is geographically limited to a relatively small area, it offers a wide variety of climbing opportunities. The landscape is typically alpine; the region is divided into side valleys formed by glaciers that flow into the main valley through which the Dora Baltea river flows. During the last ice age, the great Balteo glacier, which stretched across the entire valley axis, reached as far as today's Canavese. Its traces are still clearly visible today, as local climbers have long known, having developed a multitude of sectors on the rugged slopes of the main valley, which are constantly growing. 
While the long-established climbing areas have shaped the history of sport climbing for decades, numerous new sectors have been added in recent years, expanding the range of options in the region and making the Aosta Valley one of Italy's climbing hotspots.
The side valleys, which wind their way up from the main valley for a few dozen kilometers to the main Alpine ridge, reach considerable heights and are also densely covered with rocks that are mainly suitable for summer climbing. Here you can spend cool days in the shade of the Alpine giants, with breathtaking views of the region's four-thousand-meter peaks. In inversion weather conditions in the lower valley, however, you can also climb in the sun on winter days.
The authors decided to focus on the eastern part of the valley and its side valleys, including the foothills in Canavese—a wider area that is divided into two different regions for administrative purposes but is very homogeneous for climbers in terms of both logistics and morphology: Taking the Bard Fortress as the center point, there is a considerable number of climbing rocks here for all seasons.
422 pages
Language: German
Edition: 2026


P. Tombini, N. Vota
Versante Sud