Łukasz Dudek makes solo ascent of Pan Aroma on Cima Ovest di Lavaredo, Dolomites

Poland’s Łukasz Dudek has made a remarkable rope solo ascent of Pan Aroma, the splendid 8c multi-pitch established in 2007 by Alexander Huber up the North Face of Cima Ovest di Lavaredo, Dolomites. Dudek is no newcomer to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo group, having already repeated the 8c’s Bellavista and Project Fear on Cima Ovest with Jacek Matuszek, and having made the first ascent of Premiere with Matuszek on Cima Grande last summer. Dudek has redpointed up to 9a in the past while last winter he took his climbing to a different level with the rope-solo first ascent of an 8c sport climb at his home crag in Poland. His rope-solo of Pan Aroma is obviously in an entirely different league altogether and comes after having worked the route on three short trips in July. Here’s his report.

PAN AROMA ON CIMA OVEST DI LAVAREDO by Łukasz Dudek

On Friday 7 August I started climbing at around 9am because I wanted to be under the most difficult part at around 12. At noon the temperatures are the highest, which isn’t a bad thing on this north facing wall. Thanks to this I was able to have warm fingers and not get pumped too quickly.

I wanted to climb without any pressure, so I treated this ascent as nothing more than an attempt. Luckily for me I led all the pitches clean on the first attempt. After 17 hours of climbing, I reached the summit of Cima Ovest at 2 am.

In 2015, together with my friend Jacek Matuszek, we created our Alpine Wall Tour Team. Our goal was to repeat the most difficult multi-pitches alpine routes. Some of these are Bellavista and Project fear, which share some pitches with Pan Aroma. We climbed both.

During my short stay in the Dolomites last year I spent 2 days working Pan Aroma with my friend Jarek Kluf. Earlier this year, I decided to climb Pan Aroma alone and spent some time working it in July. Before that, as part of the preparations, I started making several dozen of solo rope ascent in Polish Jura up to 8c.

With regard to Pan Aroma, I want to point out that the most difficult pitch is a 60m traverse which I feel should be graded at 8c. The next pitch is a highly spectacular but relatively easy 8b+.