Blog Posts in Category: Rock Climbing

On the last day of out holiday we decided to climb the classic Via Maria up the south face of the Sass Pordoi. This is a 370m 8 pitch climb (+ 3 pitches of moving together at the top) which is graded at VI+ or about UK Hard Severe. As it was a long route we wanted to leave plenty of time, and we didn’t really want to spend the day queueing if we could avoid it we decided to have a really early start. This worked out as we were the first team on the route, however as it turns out there was actually only one other team on the route that day anyway! As it was a long route, and I have had previous issues with the Rockfax guidebook I searched around the internet for better route descriptions. I found this one which seemed much better for most of the route: https://www.multi-pitch.com/climbs/via-maria-on-sass-pordoi-south-face/ After a harsh start to the day with the steep climb out of the car park, with tired legs we were soon at the climb. Most of the climbing was brilliant with good rock and interesting. Read the full article…

We had much better weather on our second day at the Vajolet Towers. As we were staying in the fantastic Rifugio Re Alberto we were the first to our route. We had heard lots of excellent comments about the route, and about the level of exposure experienced and the route certainly did not disappoint. We soloed up the first easy pitch to the first proper belay on the route, this was on a ledge just to the right of the arete. The next pitch was the crux, it started up the right hand side of the arete, before getting to a ledge with some gear. At this point you had to make a tricky move out onto the arete, which suddenly put you above a massive drop into the valley below. Steady climbing up the arete then continued, which started to feel more and more airy as I edged up further away from the gear. A few more moves led to a ledge and some gear, before it all started again with another step out onto the arete. By this point 8 other people had arrived to do the climb,. Read the full article…

With a slightly mixed forecast we decided to head into the remote Rifugio Re Alberto to climb on the famous Vajolet Towers. Our main aim was for Piaz Arête which climbs the left hand arête of Torre Delago (left hand tower), however having not climbed for a while, and with the cloud which was around on the first day we headed for a slightly easer route, the normal route up Torre Stabeler, the central and highest pinnacle. We walked into the rifugio from the top of the Vajolet II chairlift, and made excellent time despite our horrible heavy bags. I again decided to carry my photography gear, but this time it was in addition to climbing gear! When we arrived at the rifugio we were very hot from the hard ascent, but as it was in the cloud it was pretty cold so we soon cooled down. After a coffee and a hot chocolate to warm up we headed over to our route, and thankfully as we left the hut the cloud cleared and mostly stayed away. We soloed the first easy pitch to get to the start of the. Read the full article…

Between our days at Cinque Torrie, and to finish our trip we had two excellent days out rock climbing above Misurina. The first was a short day on Diedro Mazzorana and the second was the long mountain multi pitch route Mazzorana. Diedro Mazzorana With another day with a poor afternoon forecast, we found the easily accessible Diedro Mazzorana which climbed Monte Popena Basso in 4 pitches. After getting hopelessly lost on the approach thanks to the awful description in the Rockfax book we just about decided that we still had enough time to climb the route. The first pitch was excellent with some enjoyable corner climbing, and just enough gear to keep me comfortable. The second pitch was fairly scrappy, which took us towards the chimney feature for the outstanding final two pitches. The final two pitches involved excellent chimney climbing, with some outstanding exposure, bridging, face climbing and a little bit of thrutching for good measure.  The views from the summit were excellent, and the descent back down was very easy which made for an excellent morning out. When we got back down to Misurina we had a quick,. Read the full article…

We had a couple of mornings climbing at Cinque Torrie as we had forecasts with a nice morning, followed by a stormy afternoon. Climbing at Cinque Torrie meant that we could easily approach with a chairlift, followed by a short walk in. Day 1 On the first morning we climbed the classic Via Normale on Quarta Bassa, which was fully bolted. It is a very classic route, but as we got the first chairlift we were the first on the route. We ran some pitches together to climb the route in two excellent pitches. After a quick photo on the top we had an atmospheric abseil down into a cave between Quarta Bassa and Quarta Alta. We were very glad for the early start as by the time we had got back to our bags, the initial pitches of the route were chaos as there were about 3 separate teams climbing the route at the same time. As the bad weather had not yet arrived, we then made the most of our 60m ropes by climbing a two pitch sport route, Bassa Thirteen, as a single pitch. The route climbed. Read the full article…