Conquering Marmolada - queen of Dolomites

Marmolada is the queen of the Dolomites. An unbelievable amount of (mostly) incredible grey limestone that you feel completely immersed in when you climb there. The south face of Marmolada is where chapters in climbing history were written. I believe that if you are an alpine climber from Czechia or Slovakia, you feel even more that Marmolada is not only the centre of the Dolomites, but the centre of the universe. And the most famous route is the one with a little cave in the middle that looks very much like a fish. Via attraverso il pesce (Route through the fish) is a myth, and not an overrated myth, that happened to be first ascended by Igor Koller and Jindřich Šustr back in 1981. Two guys from former Czechoslovakia who had never climbed together before tied in at the base of the Fish, and 3 days later they stood on the top. With football shoes with the spikes cut off on their feet, a few peckers on their harness, a hook and a lot of courage, they tackled such an imposing wall that is even steeper than it looks.

This summer, I finally made my way to see this beauty of a wall for myself. I hadn't been as excited to see a new wall for a very long time. There is only one time in your life when you see El Cap for the first time, and Marmolada gave me the same excitement. I had two routes in mind to truly experience the wall - The Fish for a more alpine and historical route, and Egoland for the modern one. For both routes, I had truly exceptional climbing partners, Pietro dal Pra and Berni Rivadossi.





Pietro dal Pra is my long-time friend who took me on one of my first multipitches in Switzerland or Madagascar, and he told me many times about the Fish and how cool it would be to climb it one day together. He has done it 10 times himself, but with a route like this, climbing it yet another time is still exciting. There was some unexpected rain the night before, so when we were about to set off from the refuge at dawn, we found out the wall was still pretty wet. We got more coffee and an hour later we set off anyway, hoping the wall would dry up later. At the base, the rock was still very damp, but we waited a bit longer, and then, 3 hours later than expected, we started climbing.





The wet rock slowed our progress; we had to climb carefully so we did not slip on the easy, wet terrain. Eventually it got a bit drier a couple of pitches higher and we decided to simul-climb for two pitches. I had not studied the topo too carefully before, and Pietro told me that somewhere halfway up the corner, I should go left. When I got there, it felt very confusing and I didn't really know where to go. After some precarious up-and-down climbing (pretty sketchy as it was still partly wet), I found a traverse left and reached some sort of anchor. And it was just a bunch of old threads, but it looked good enough. When Pietro reached me, the bad news was that we were definitely off the route. I insisted we just continue up and traverse right to join the original route, but it looked sketchy and unprotectable, so I had to surrender, and we rappelled back down to the previous anchor so we could continue.





Funny how you can get lost on such a classic route when one of the climbers has already done it 10 times. Nevertheless, it was a sign that The Fish is not to be underestimated and I kept on climbing with much more respect and care. The higher we got, the more exposed it became and the more you get into proper climbing ecstasy. A couple of pitches below the fish, when the climbing got especially incredible, my stomach was the reason I stopped enjoying myself. The camera crew had some stomach problems over the previous few days, and now it hit me too. I climbed the last two pitches into the fish. My stomach cramps definitely made the experience of this holy place a bit worse. I was trying to eat a bit, and ultimately, I finally made this holy place a bit less holy. This was a huge relief and I knew I could continue.



This allowed me to really enjoy the next pitches, which are just incredible. Constantly around 7a-7b range, on the bulletproof limestone, with forced sequences that are quite enigmatic to figure out and extremely fun to climb. I found myself thinking about Hansjörg Auer, who free-soloed the route. With me getting lost and my stomach problems, we were just too slow, and we made it to the big ledge at two-thirds of the way up the wall too late to catch the cable car down. We were pretty happy with our day on The Fish, and not climbing to the summit (therefore not sending the route) at least makes me more motivated to climb it in the future - with someone younger next time. Moments on the wall with Pietro are truly special, grazie!

Egoland is less famous, less adventurous, but not any less beautiful! It is the future classic of extreme multipitch climbing, because it is hard to find a route more perfect than Egoland. Opened by Berni Rivadossi and Max Faletti (then redpointed by Berni and Luca Bana), it has an 8c pitch with gray rock with a 30-degree overhang. It is hard to find a pitch so perfect in the alpine terrain. Then upper pitches in the 7c-8a range are again total climbing ecstasy. Climbing is easier to read than on The Fish, the holds are better, but the climbing is more athletic and burly. My goal was to onsight this route. Berni Rivadossi went up the day before and he cleaned the route for me and put some chalk on the holds, as we agreed. The deal was for him to put the chalk exactly as he would if he was about to give it a try himself. Not more, not less. Unfortunately, there was a bit of rain the evening before, which made some of the chalk disappear. When I found myself in the crux 8c pitch after the 7b+ and 7c+ "warm-up" pitches, I just couldn't see a good hold, as it was a bit wet and the chalk was gone, so I opted for a different beta and broke a tiny spike off my handhold, which resulted in a fall.





It was frustrating, but I could send the pitch on my second go. I think the pitch is around 8c, I used one rest jug on the left side that Berni and Luca did not use, but I think it is pointless to impose elimination rules on such a beautiful route - the jug is just too close. The original grade was 8c/c+. The fourth pitch is 8b/b+ and it is definitely not easy. I couldn't onsight it. I got tired on my onsight try and hurried back to the belay to give it a second try as I was worried the rain would come and I would not have enough time to summit. My second try, with minimal rest, just barely worked, and we could sprint to the top. The top section (6 more pitches) was really smooth, efficient and by 2 PM we were at the top. Grazie, Berni, for the route and the belay!









Photographer Jan Virt and AO's Team took the great photos in the article and in the gallery below.