To the Dolomites
I made my way to Italy by catching an early train from Bern to Brig and then from Brig to Milan and finally from Milan to Verona, where my Finnish friend Markus picked me up. The signage at the Milan railway station was pretty bad and I actually got lost there for a while before I found the correct train. I was glad that I had chosen the train that left twenty minutes later rather than the one that I might have caught had the trains been on schedule and had I been really quick.
We had relatively ambitious plans for the Dolomites with Markus. One of the plans was to climb Fedele/Dibona route in Sass Pordoi with a night spent on the huge scree slope about two thirds of the way up. That plan was scratched very quickly because the route stays wet for quite some time after rain, and it was raining during our first day in Italy. We also weren't quite as fast as we would have perhaps liked so we quickly realized that there was no way we could climb any multi pitches on the first day of the trip. The road from Verona towards Dolomites took us through the legendary sport climbing area of Arco and we thought that perhaps some sport climbing could be fun instead. We drove up to the crag but had to abandon the plan because it started to rain just as we made it to the parking lot.
After a week of climbing in Switzerland I wasn't too disheartened by this rest day. We continued driving north towards Sella pass and pondered our options for the night. Markus would have much preferred staying in a hotel but very few were available and the ones available were way too expensive for me. This time we both were prepared to stay outside so tent it was. It's surprisingly easy to find relatively good tent places in the Dolomites and this time wasn't an exception.
In typical Markus fashion the start of the next day wasn't exactly swift so we started climbing way later than we should have. Markus with his never-ending optimism didn't seem to be all that worried though. Our goal for the day was the coveted Vinatzer on the Sella Tower #3. At V+ and 11 pitches this seemed like a reasonable option and warm up for us, even though I was still pretty sceptical with our start time. The climbing started pretty well even though it took a while for the brain to warm up to the climbing in the Dolomites. We reached the start of pitch number six, the crux pitch, with two or so hours of sunlight left. This is a pretty crucial point in the climb because from there it is easy to walk down a ledge and bail by rappelling down.
Markus seemed eager to at least climb the crux pitch and perhaps bail after that. I knew that it would get close but I wanted to finish the whole climb. I don't like to give up easily. Markus led the crux pitch with no troubles but didn't find the anchor described in the guide book. We lost some precious time and I knew I had to try to make up for it during the following pitches. The anchors described in the guide book kept on eluding us and saving time proved more difficult than I had hoped. Two pitches after the crux there's another decision to make: the original, direct, harder, but also arguably better finish or a new, easier, faster but perhaps more boring finish. We of course chose the former.
Both of the finishes are supposed to be three pitches long. I started leading the first V- pitch and kept the description of the guide book in mind. "Keep left and follow a crack on the edge of the arete. Move left and climb up for 10m to reach an overhanging crack." There was no crack to follow. I kept left anyway and followed what someone perhaps could describe as arete. The sketchy rock quality of the Dolomites forced me to move slower than I wanted, especially because I felt like I was off route. With some effort I navigated my way over a small spiky rock formation and found a traverse leading even further left. I saw an abandoned cam in a crack at the end of the traverse so I knew that I wasn't the first person to have ventured there. Rope drag was horrible even though I hadn't put much protection on the way up and had extended the ones I had put.
I moved towards the crack carefully as I didn't want to be pulled off balance by the rope drag. The crack didn't look trivial but there was no time to hesitate. I pulled on and hoped the rope drag wouldn't cause me to fall. I managed to climb the crack but the rope drag was so huge that I continuing would have been next to impossible. I called Markus by phone from the ledge I had reached because we couldn't hear each other. Markus told me that we probably should bail but I explained him that the bailing train had long gone. I had traversed so far left that there was no reasonable way for me to get back to him. I built the best possible anchor I could and belayed Markus to the ledge. Markus wasn't feeling so great so I ended up leading the next pitch as well. I stretched our 50m ropes as far as I could but couldn't reach the top. Again I didn't see any sign of an anchor so I built my own. Thankfully this time it was the last one and the rest of the way was easy walking up to the summit.
The last anchor I built. A sweet row of Totems. I don't like how they all use the same feature though, but there was nothing else available.
We topped the Sella Tower #3 just as the sun was setting and we knew it would be dark on the way down.
We tried to be as quick as possible at the summit because the sun was just about to set. After taking a couple of pictures and eating a nut or two (not the climbing kind) we started looking for the way down. The guide book says "It has to be said that the descent from the summit of the 3rd Sella Tower is not nearly as pleasant as the ascent." and it certainly was the case. It's a long series of rappels on sometimes dubious and hard to find anchors, some downclimbing and ledge traversing. It took us over four hours to get down and we made it back to our tent at about 3am. Good times!
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