© Paul Robert Williams
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Site Last Updated: 02/Apr/2011
BRENTA & SELLA RONDA DOLOMITES, ROCK CLIMBING:
Sun 19 Jul: For the first day we decided upon some sport route climbing in the Muro Dei Meridiani at the Sarche region. This meant an early start in order to avoid the heat of the midday. The route to the rock face is a steep hike for about 20 mins which has a couple of fixed ropes in places, but it is worth it as this walk-in means the area is seldom visited and quiet. The views even from the base of the climbs are well worth the hike too.
We climbed the route ‘New Entry’, 70m of 3 pitches 5c,5c,6a. We pitch slightly difficult but maybe it was because it was the first pitch of the first day of the week (some parts of the pitch defined as 6a+ in the book ‘Sarca Walls’ by Diego Filippi). We finished at midday & drove down to the top of Lake Garda for lunch & rest on the beach for an hour.
The fabulous part about climbing in this region is the sheer vast number & variety of climbs that can be found well within a short area, so in the afternoon we drove to the slab area of Parete Zebrata. We climbed route ‘Opera Prima’ at 5pm in the sector ‘Settore Sportivo’ which consists of 100m of 3 sport pitches 4a, 5b, 4a. This was an easy but likeable introduction to this area. Although bolted the belay stations do not have chains between the bolts & some belay stations only 1 bolt, but this pitch was no so difficult as to cause concern.
The following morning we decided to climb in the Parete Zebrata area again, this time climbing the first three long pitches of ‘Solaris’, 5b,6a,6a. This was a great climb & I would have loved to have carried on climbing on to the slab for the two 6a+ pitches, but by midday it was just too hot & we also had to drive to Carisolo in the afternoon for our planned climb of the Presanella.
After the arduous ascent of the Presanella we drove to the Sella Ronda region for our first attempt at traditional alpine climbing on the famous Trenker route. We stayed in the small town of Canazei, a picturesque area surrounded by mountains on all sides. We had an early start as again as we didn’t want to be climbing in the heat of the day, particularly on a South facing route and also given that the Trenker route on the Sella Tower is very popular. It takes ½ hr to drive to the Sella pass a series of many switchbacks in order to gain the height to reach the impressive pass. Once at the top we parked by the cafe & then walked the 15 mins to the base of the cliff. The views of the three Sella Towers very certainly very impressive.
The Trenker route is a great introduction to multi-pitch trad alpine climbing. It is not too technically difficult, the route obvious & there are pitons at each of the belay stations and pitons on the hard sections. However, we were glad to take a set of slings, hexes and nuts for extra security placement during the climb and at the belay stations. We finished around 4pm which was about 2hrs more than the guidebook recommendation but not bad for our first alpine trad climb. By now the wind had whipped up from virtually nothing to quite blowy so we didn’t stay long on the top.
The descent is as precarious as the climb, if not more difficult as it involves a steep walk traversing across an exposed path with easy downclimbing in places. About 2/3 of the way down a 30m abseil is required with the necessary abseil point in place. It took about 1hr to get down but we were pleased with our climb. The grade was not too difficult or easy, just about right. The exposure and the fact you need to place most of your own gear makes it harder than a normal sport climb though. The pitches are fairly long too, with the climb a total of 180m in height.
The following day we drove up to the Pordoi pass which again is about ½ hr, with the intention of climbing another multi-pitch trad route. The route up to the base is obvious from the car park but it is a good 1hr walk up hill to the start. We arrived at 10 am and started climbing around 10:30. The difficulty with trad climbing over sport routes is that the route is not always so obvious so it is important to ensure the climb is well planned first. This route is well protected but also contains a lot of loose rock & there were two occasions when stones came hurtling down the gulley just missing me in both cases. After climbing the first couple of long pitches it was obvious we also weren’t going to reach the
cable car in time to take it from the top before it closed so we called it a day and abseiled down.
Details:
Flights - flew with BA to Marco Polo airport.
Car Hire - Avis.
Accommodation - Albergo Canazei B&B, Canazei.
Flights -