Climbing Europe (or elsewhere) late July-early August

Hi everyone.

My husband and I are trying to plan a climbing trip for sometime mid July - late July, or else early-to-mid August. (The exact timing depends on his weird medical school schedule, which we should hopefully have sorted out soon.) I know both those times are less-than-ideal in terms of weather for climbing, but it's what we have to work with right now.

We were planning to go to Europe, but are open to other suggestions. Basically, we will have about 12-15 days, so we'd like to stay mostly in one place so as not to waste time on lengthy intra-continent travel. Looking for places for sport climbing anywhere from 5.9-5.12. Being in a cool place/near fun places to visit on rest days would be great, although neither of us have done much traveling in Europe, so I think anywhere would be great for us. In terms of lodging, we are very flexible. Willing to crash basically anywhere, trying to keep it on the cheap-ish end of things.

Also - I'd love to get some bouldering in, but we wouldn't be traveling with a crash pad... are there places to rent them?

Thanks in advance!

Hannah

Hannah L wrote:Hi everyone. My husband and I are trying to plan a climbing trip for sometime mid July - late July, or else early-to-mid August.

Given the summer season, I think you can rule out anything near the beach or down low. Will be too hot.

Leaves you higher altitude-ish stuff. Vercors might work. Les Dentelles. Dolomites. The Chiavenna area in Northern Italy is super.

Switzerland would work, but, lodging might be a bit more spendy than you're looking for. Well...everything more expensive...ha ha.

You might look at renting a house for your stay. The gites in France are a great deal. The popular spots might book early for summer season in the hills. Maybe nearer rock venues instead of more standard tourist spots might make it easier to find a spot on shorter notice. I rented a gite in Lans-en-Vercors for 10 days that we based out of and it was super. Good mix of sport and longer mountains to climb. Fun area.

La Grave area has a bunch of venues and the scenery and food is great. Ecrins are a big area with long and short options for climbing.

Easy to base out of Grenoble for a couple of weeks.

Ditto Cortina but lodging might be spendy in high season. Camping cheaper but still not cheap.

Anyhoo...some idears...good luck!

Key question for what counts as a good place to go in Europe is whether you will have a car.

Second question is camping versus hotel (or dorm/hostel, or apartment).

Interesting that you so freely use the word "cool" -- since in recent years, many famous Europe climbing areas in summer have daytime temperatures hot.

Ken

Brian -- thanks for the input! That was really helpful. :-)