Po Valley climbing

Crag: San Leonardo, Piemonte, Italy
Routes: Spigolino (f5a:led), La Barbie (f5c:sec), Bugs Bunny (f5a:sec), Siamo Solo Noi (f5b:led), Siamo Pure (f5b:sec), Rodicchio (f4c:led), Super Mario (f5c:sec), Il Gufo (f5c:led), Vento Da Nord (f5b:sec), Liberati (f6a+:sec)
The upper Po Valley is littered with granite crags, and you don't have to drive far from Saluzzo to get to them. So after an excellent evening enjoying Dolcetto d'Alba and a range of aperitivos in the old town, we were keen to get some cragging in after breakfast. Monte Bracco is probably the finest crag in these parts, but we were mindful of the need to conserve energy after Argentera and before our attempt on Viso, so we settled for the similar but smaller crag of San Leonardo above the village of Revello. The walk-in became far more of a trial than it needed to be, because a jeep obscured the critical path junction which led to the crag. So we made a tiring and unnecessary detour to the shrine of San Leonardo on top of a big hill overlooking the Po Valley. Eventually, however, we reached the crag, which was ideal for our purposes today: perhaps 20-25m high, well-bolted, shady and tree-lined, all routes on solid gneiss. I kicked off with a lead of Spigolino, a little ridge as its name suggests, which gave delightful gentle climbing up an elegant rib of gneiss. Vic's lead of La Barbie was a steeper but varied line at f5c/HVS, which took a weirdly awkward series of interlocking reefs of granite before emerging onto a delicate and technical slab. Bugs Bunny took an easier groove further left. I then led another fine route, Siamo Solo Noi, which went easily to a small overhang taken on big holds. Great moves over this to another thought-provoking slabby finish. The left-hand line was marginally harder, particularly as the sun was now drenching the upper part of the crag and it was becoming quite hot. Rodicchio was an easy route on huge holds, while Super Mario gave some really excellent steep and juggy climbing up a series of quite powerful vertical cracks at f5c+/E1. The route of the day, from my perspective, came next - Il Gufo (the Owl), a big 80ft pitch taking an excellent natural line up the highest part of the crag. Initially, the route goes up an awkward wide chimney, which slants right and can be avoided by some steep and insecure (and rather green) shelves on the right wall. A few moves up the chimney then become necessary, before the route breaks out right up the now clean wall to an excellent sustained headwall with some tricky but elegant moves. Neatly sustained at f5c/HVS+ throughout: a pleasingly efficient, clean lead. A couple of shorter routes, including one at f6a+ which contained one very technical move off a one-finger pocket, before we retreated from the sun up the valley to a panini in Cristallo. We then took the tortuous road all the way to Pian del Rei at 2000m, where we began the long walk-in to the Sella Hut in temperatures that were at least 20c cooler.