The summer of ’09 was one to remember; good climbing weather throughout if one was up for it and flexible.  Sadly enough though the big brightly burning joke of an economy cooled to resemble a cold cup of tea and left a similarly bad taste in your mouth.  The Dole queues got longer, job pages in the paper all but disappeared and the big water hole of money put aside for foreign climbing trips dried up like an oasis in one of those African wildlife documentaries.  All the animals would linger to watch a big blue watery hole reduce to a dirty brown puddle as they become scrawny, shrivel up and die.

Ah it’s been a savage year.  The club has gone from strength to strength over the past few months, resulting in trips both home and abroad for the purpose of scurrying up rock-faces just for the sheer hell of it!  The crags of Italy, Spain and Ireland were all touched by savage craic shoes this year and when not outdoors most of us could be found climbing the walls of Naas Health and Fitness Centre.

2009 Savage Craic climbing destinations included The Burren, The Gap of Dunloe, Lough Dan, Glendalough, Lough Belshade and Dalkey for those of us who chose to stay at home.  While the Dolomites, the Alps, the crags of El Chorro and the Italian Via Ferratas all featured on the itinerary of those who chose to climb further afield.

The morning of the Savage Craic Christmas party dawned a fine crisp December day. I left my house in Wicklow with high hopes of a good aul session on the way and I headed for the ''Big Smoke'' A.K.A Dublin City. I stepped off the L.U.A.S at Heuston station and I was feckin’ starving, so into the Galway Hooker I went for a big dirty breakfast.
There was much excitement at the breakfast table, people chatted about the up-coming bouldering wall project, a trip to the wall in Dingle was arranged, conspiracy theorists spoke of the Dingle farmer’s cybernetic dolphin ''The Fungatron 3000'', but the best thing of all was the news of the arrival of little Billy Byrne. Well done Jim, congratulations and fair play to ya daddy !! Jaysus says I to meself now that’s something worth celebrating, so the first drinks of the day were purchased and consumed at the dangerously early hour of 9:40 am.

After a few months of preparation and planning where to go, we decided to try out Italian Rocks.

Before leaving Dublin we had some nice white wine to start off our holiday and to get that nice warm feeling before the flight
In the next few hours we arrived in Bergamo airport and our problems began: first of all it was a lot of hassle renting a car, all car rentals were asking to leave deposits of 1000 euro or so on...