We are staying in Claro, which is a perfect home base. Cresciano is ten minutes away, Chironico about twenty and Magic Wood a little more than an hour. Our apartment is bigger than I expected it would be and the surroundings are more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. From our balcony, we have an unobstructed view of beautiful mountains and from our front door we can see the monastery on the hill that is lit up every night. The town itself is very quaint, with a central grocery store, coffee shop, meat market, post office and church. We have been told that this particular part of Switzerland is rural and poor, but those terms must be relative, since the houses are all quite nice, the residents are very well-dressed and expensive cars are not uncommon. 

Our first week here was spent familiarizing ourselves with the area. As we ran around looking at boulder problems, I realized that five weeks would not be nearly enough time to do all the things I wanted to do. I started trying things, but for the majority of the first ten days, I got shut down. It usually takes some time for me to adapt to the style of a new area, and this time I had numerous areas to bounce between. Although all the areas are granite (or some form of it), each has its own style. Cresciano is very technical and climbs a lot like Little Cottonwood or Yosemite. Chironico is also technical, but not to the same degree as Cresciano. Some of the other problems scattered throughout Ticino are on gneiss that is so impeccable that it climbs much like sandstone.