Hansjörg Auer: Marmolada, Piz Ciavazes and Sass dla Crusc free solo climb in a single day

Vinatzer / Messner (800m, VI+) up the South Face of the Marmolada, Abramkante (500m, VII-) up Piz Ciavazes and Große Mauer (300m, VII-) up the West Face of Sass dla Crusc, also referred to as Heiligkreuzkofel in German. 12 hours in total, circa 33 kilometres covered, 3600 vertical height gain and loss of which 1600 meters climbing. Climbing free solo, that particular form of climbing that shouldn’t be imitated... These are the stats of the decidedly different day that Hansjörg Auer experienced on 8 August 2016 in the Dolomites, after having bivied in a cave below the South Face of Marmolada with his brother Matthias.

The Austrian is certainly no newcomer to undertakings of this sort (it’s worth remembering his free solo of Tempi Moderni in 2006 and Via attraverso il Pesce / The Fish route in 2007 and Mephisto on Sass de la Crusc in 2015), and this time in order to enchain one mountain with the next he shouldered a lightweight paraglider on his climbs.

Although light, the weight of the paraglider certainly made itself felt, especially towards the end. "I wanted to be fast" Auer told planetmountain.com "also because I had no idea how far I’d manage to fly. In he end strong winds didn’t allow me to get any further than Corvara. Keeping concentrated on the long approach to Große Mauer proved difficult and when I finally reached the route I knew that I had already crossed my usual limit."

His physical or psychological limit, we asked the 33-year-old. "Both. It was a combination of being tired physically, and then finding Große Mauer to be more intense than I had imagined. Suddenly the crux pitch no longer felt easy and while climbing the famous flake traverse I yearned for the end of the route." At the top of the climb Auer was greeted by his brother Matthias.

For the record, the other day Hansjörg Auer teamed up with Belgium’s Siebe Vanhee to make a rare repeat of Andromeda (7c/+), the route first ascended without bolts to the right of the Fish route on the South Face of the Marmolada by Maurizio Giordani and Rossana Mandrini in 1989, and freed by Auer's childhood idol and climbing instructor Roland Mittersteiner and Helmut Kritzinger in 1991. Auer commented: "congrats to Maurizio Giordani for opening the line 30 years ago by using around 25 pitons only. And it’s crazy to think how good Mittersteiner was climbing in those years…"



06:15 Start bivouac
06:30 Start Free Solo “Vinatzer/Messner” (800m / VI+)
08:30 Summit Marmolada Punta Rocca
08:45 Start flight #1
09:15 Start hiking #1
10:45 Start Free Solo “Abramkante” (500m / VII-)
12:00 End of route
12:00 Start hiking #2 to Pisciadu Hut
13:15 Start flight #2
14:00 Start hiking #3
17:15 Start Free Solo “Große Mauer” (300m / VII-)
18:00 End of route
18:15 Summit Sass dla Crusc