Shopping trolleys in the sky! Marmolada Slab Climbing

Today's slab climbing adventures took place up at Pian dei Fiacconi, high above the Fedaia Pass. The climbing was fun, but not as fun as the journey there! To avoid an arduous hike up from the pass, we opted to take the lift. Im not entirely sure how to describe the 'lift' - it's not cable car, not a chair lift, more of a shopping trolley attached to a moving cable!

The thing moves non-stop. As they come past, one after the other, the wheel on the bottom of the trolley comes in contact with the ground you have to make a dash for it and jump in! Great fun!

Then it's up, up and away in your little basket! 

It's a surprisingly long journey and when we jumped out at the top, we found ourselves in a wild place! We were just below the snow line on the north side of the Marmolada - the highest peak in the Dolomites! The remains of the receeding glaciers were above us and we stayed off the snow by hiking across the scree moraines towards the cliff.

A mere ten minutes later and we'd left the noise of the lift behind. It felt like we were way out in the wilderness, stood at the base of the slabs on the moraine rubble. The slabs looked great!

The views were fantastic, with the snow and glaciers behind us and jagged skylines in every other direction as far as we could see! The climbing was pretty good too, although there was a lot of small loose bits in places - like parts of the slab needs a sweep.

The position more than made up for this.

All the routes were bolted and with solid chain belays, except the first route we did which ended at a bolt, some pitons and a lot of manky old tat tied to them! Not ideal! 

We'd set an alarm so that we wouldn't miss the last ride down at 16:45. We could have done with a slightly earlier start, but managed to get five routes climbed and made it back with 10 minutes to spare! Then down in the valley, got the rug out of the van and picnicked in the sun.

Pian dei Fiacconi:

- Bricola (4b)**

- Merlot (5b)**

- Tettino (5c)**

- La Sagra del Buso (5a)*

- Argo (5c)**

Valley Cragging around Val Gardena

We've sampled a few of the 'lower' altitude crags today, starting with the bolted slabs of 'Frea' up at the Gardena Pass.

Morning Sun over 'Frea'

But not before a quick trip to my new favourite shop - our local bakers - for a morning croissant fix! Located dangerously close to our apartment!

Best bakery in the Dolomites

Once fuelled up on freshly baked good and cereals, we drove over the Sella Pass to Val Gardena to an area called 'Frea', just below the summit of the pass. Last nights storms had really soaked the crag and being almost north facing, they were struggling to dry out.

Wispy Clouds

Undeterred we walked up to the base of the cliff, and eventually, having located ourselves and seeing a route on a dry section of rock we set off up. The climbing is on very pocketed limestone and although our route was dry(ish) all the pockets were full of water!

View from the Belay

The temperature was also much lower than previous days and the technical style of climbing did not lend itself well to having cold finger tips! The rock was also pretty steep for what was described as a 'slab'! We got a decent way up the cliff, before we ran out of dry rock, so decided to call it a day and come back once the place had properly dried out.

Steep for slab climbing!

There was a very steep 'path' leading back to the base of the cliff - so steep in fact, it was a climb; but protected with wires at least.

Heading down the fixed wires

We then stopped off near the Sella Pass for some more mellow single pitch routes in the meadow, where we were joined by some of the locals...

Cragside visitor!

A few spots of rain fell, but not enough to put us off until hunger got the better of us and we headed home for a big cook up.

Claudia (5c) 

Frea:
- Two Pitcher 1 (4b,4c)
- Peru 2 (6a)***

Città di Sassi:
- Sector 1 (Michl - Martl Stoan)
- Claudia (5c)*
- Poppi (6b)*
- Helene (5c)

Sport Climbing at Penia di Canazei

It's only a tiny crag, but was just what we needed this afternoon - a quick climbing hit before the forecast storms arrived! Only a few minutes drive from the apartment and with a walk in time of about sixty seconds, it was hard to fault! Given the showery weather today, on first impressions the crag looked uninspiringly soaking wet and mossy. But on closer inspection, the rock was actually warm and dry! It's just a different (very dark conglomerate) to the normal dolomitic limestone around here.

After despatching the classic route, under darkening skies, we went for a second as the first rain drops started to fall. 

The steepness of the crag meant we got away with it, but a storm was surely close by!

The crag is in a beautiful little spot by the river, so we took a short walk and made it just back to the van and then the apartment before things really 'kicked off'. Watching here from the comfort of our balcony, it's raining torrentially and lighting bolts are flickering very close by! Exciting stuff!

Penia di Canazei

- Fessura 6a***

- Rebo 6a+***

Porte Neigre and the Tyrolean Traverse!

The south face of Porte Neigre was todays objective and the scene of another fantastic day of climbing in the Dolomites. If I could design a days climbing, it might look something like this - it's our very style of 'Alpine Style Climbing'. From the small village of Pera, we took a 'mountain taxi' up a long and winding road and got dropped in a wild looking valley, below the huge 600m vertical face of Cima Catinaccio, and Punta Emma.

Lunch below Punta Emma

We then hiked a little further uphill to the base of Porte Neigre, home to two fantastic climbs. We opted for the 'easier' of the two first and set off up..

Setting off...

The cliff was steep and the rock was solid, with some wildly exposed belays!

Hanging belays today!

Setting off up the 3rd pitch, high up on the arete

Topping out

At the top of the route after some great climbing, you find that you have actually ascended a pillar that is detached from the main cliff! To get back across to the mainland, you have to shimmy across an in-situ Tyrolean Traverse! It's not far across, but there is a decent drop below!

The route back to the main cliff!

After you!....

Don't look down!

Once across, we had a final pitch of climbing that led us up to the cross at the top of the cliff.

On the summit

Now here comes the best part! - Behind the cross at the cliff top is the 'Refugio Preuss' - a mountain hut that serves hot french fries and fine coffee to hungry climbers like us! Brilliant! And all served up amongst some of the finest mountain scenery you could ask for!

Ah yes! Another well placed hut at the top of the route!

After a relaxing lunch at the hut, we decided to walk around to the base of the cliff and do a pitch or two of the next route. This turned out to be considerably harder, with a slightly 'overhanging' theme to the main pitch! Setting off on the second pitch; leaving a nice big ledge, to traverse out into space required a bit of commitment, but despite the look of things, holds and bolts appeared just in the nick of time. I was pretty pumped by the time I reached the belay, but totally buzzing. Clare soon joined me and continued upwards. We decided not to climb the final pitch as it looked a little scrappy and from where we were, we could make a couple of big abseils back to the ground without too much hassle. Not wanting to miss the last taxi down to the valley, we chose to play it safe and head down.

The final 60m abseil.

Once back on terra firm, we made it back to the 'drop off' point to get the taxi back to the valley floor with half an hour to spare.

Heading home...

Then just to round things off, we celebrated our day by going straight for pizza and ice cream! What a day!

Porte Neigre:

- Via vuoto d'aria (5a) (4 pitches plus Tyrolean traverse)

- Via del Refugio (6a) (we did 3 pitches then abseiled down)

The Sella Towers - Third Time Lucky!

Hoorah! After two aborted attempts, we've finally made ascent of the Dolomite classic Sella Tower! Having been snowed off in 2007, rained off last week, today we climbed the first of the four towers.

The Sella Towers - (the first tower is the right hand tower)

But it nearly didn't happen! Another pre 6am alarm call led to another discovery of a soaking wet street and low cloud in the valley outside. Back to sleep... Later that morning as things looked like they were drying up, we set off to 'have a look' up at the Sella Pass. First impressions weren't as fantastic as I'd have hope for when we arrived as we could only just see the tower!

Rain, rain, go away! The foreboding view from the Sella Pass

But it felt like the clouds were beginning to break up, so we decided to go for it and walk up to the base.

The cloud starts to break!

Walking up to the Towers as the clouds part!

Sure enough, the gamble paid off! And this meant that we had (what was billed as one of the most popular routes in the Dolomites) to ourselves! The route up the main arete (Via Steger, Grade IV+) is actually pretty disjointed, but the higher we climbed the better the route became.

Top of the first 'slippery chimney'!

We still kept an eye out behind us on the weather, which almost spooked us, but gradually the clouds broke up to give some great climbing conditions. The rock was perfectly dry and in places highly polished by the volume of traffic.

'Weather' on the way

On the Arete

The top pitch gives the greatest exposure as you have to traverse around the (by now quite thin) arete above a huge drop, then shortly after we reached the summit!

Summit Team!

And signed into the summit log book!

Signing into the summit log book

According to the guidebook, it is possible to descend the route via a series of abseils, but due to the wandering nature of the route, this didn't really seem that appealing. Instead, we continued the traverse of the first tower, then under the base of the second which is well recommended. Then a bit of down climbing..

Ridge Traversing

Then finally one abseil, saw us back on the ground.

The final abseil (30m)

Flowers everywhere!

As we walked back under the base of the towers, we got a great view of the route and watched some other climbers on different routes.

First Sella Tower - The route follows the left hand skyline

Then, seeing how the day had brightened up nicely, we drove over to the Sella Refugio for a well earned drink and the use of a very comfy rocking chair!

And relax... with the Towers in the background

Ahhh.... View from the rocking chair - 'Mountain Lifestyle'!

Col Rodella Via Ferrata

Did our first Dolomiti Via Ferrata today! It's been ages since I've done any Via Ferrata routes and it just so happens that there is a good introductory one on the Col Rodella, which is a short cable car ride away from our apartment. 

There was another huge storm and downpour last night, so we gave the cliff chance to dry out by not opting for the first lift up this morning (and it is a Sunday after all!).

Having said that, we were still at the base of the route by 9.30, having had a leisurely breakfast. It felt weird being able to get a cable car to 2400m and having not even broken sweat! We weren't complaing though and set off up the route feeling fresh in the glow of the morning sunlight.

Not being a regular Via Ferrata user, we had hired the required lanyards from the local climbing store. We were going to buy a set each (€99), until we realised that we could hire a set for €7! (These keep you safe(ish) by being clipped to a wire that follows the route to the top).

The route was graded VF3A and was just the gentle intro that we were looking for on a sunny Sunday morning. Steep enough to be interesting, but never terrifying or too exposed.

There were a few other teams on the route, but everyone was moving along at roughly the same pace, so there was never much of a hold up.

Then all too soon, we found ourselves approaching the summit.

The views from the top were fantastic, with a great 360 degree panorama.

Made all the better by viewing them from the comfort of a deck chair! Some enterprising Italians had built a cafe with viewing terrace right on top of the mountain and the cable led pretty much straight into the bar! We didn't really feel like we'd earned a drink yet - we both still felt fresh as daisies, but the lure of luxuriating in style was too intoxicating to resist! 

We decided to make more of the day by walking home rather than taking the cable car. So after a cuppachino and watching numerous paragliders take off in front of us, we found the start of footpath number 529 and headed back to the village, passing some big cows along the way!

It was a lovely walk that descended 1000m back to the valley. First through the flower filled meadows, then down through the pine forests. 

And an hour later we arrived back in the village where we found a market was in full swing!