Monte Bianco di Presanella and the new rock climb Il Male di Vivere

A beautiful adventure led us up this interesting and challenging route. How you deal with tackling a new line is always interesting and varied, and a route like this one could have been done fast & light, but we asked ourselves "why?" Mountain climbing seems to increasingly reflect modern life, i.e. you get up and return early, you’re always in a hurry, things tend to run smoothly and the successful outcome tends to be guaranteed before you even set off. It must be because of this that the most popular routes are those that are protected best, that have excellent route descriptions and are well-known by all. Pre-packed, expendable adventure I’d define as “selfie fodder". So, for once, we decided to take things easy, spend hours on the mountain, doing nothing at all. And we had a great time…

It's seven thirty in the evening and we’re still at an unspecified point of the face, at least eighty difficult meters below the snowy ledge where we thought we’d spend the night. Paolo and I have freezing feet while Alessio is finishing the long pitch which, judging on how long it’s taken him, mist be very difficult indeed. We’ve finished our repertoire of jokes and as I drag me feet through the slush and water and wonder why I didn’t spend this time trying to woo a girl I really like instead of coming up here to do this sort of shit. I conclude that, probably, it’s because the mountains almost always "love me", as opposed to that someone else.

After a long pause, during which we hear the hammer being used high above us, the rope starts feeding out again and after a while Alessio shouts down for us to follow. The pitch is really hard, an overhanging boulder problem start followed by a rounded chimney and then the kick in the teeth at the end: a smooth, blind crack where Alessio pulled the rabbit out of the hat, 10m of 7a climbing, protected by a lone Friend in the middle. I congratulate him, grab the gear and look around hoping to find a terrace.

No go. I already imagine myself sitting on the granite flakes, huddled close to each other waiting for the bad night to finish when… on the left, just below me, I discover a detached pillar that seems sufficiently big and flat for all three of us. We reach it, shovel the snow off and discover a perfect place for a bivouac: three by one and a half meters, angled downwards at 120°. We quickly fix a "life line" with a couple of pegs and snuggle into our sleeping bags.

We’d taken some snow with us, enough to cook some excellent dried mashed potatoes. Paolo points out that it contains about a tenth of the calories we’d need the following day, I tell him that he needs a diet, and anyways he doesn't know about the surprise in store: three cans of tuna and even some dessert; dried figs. All said and done we feel like kings: full bellies, in comfort, it’s not even cold and the sunset provides us with a magnificent view onto Monte Nero and the Brenta Dolomites in the background.

We spend the night with legs dangling, the harness from inside our sleeping bag stops us from slipping off the ledge. We wake up a couple of times during the night but I thought it would be worse, it’s almost warm. Dawn is the best gift of all; the face we’re on is fully exposed to the east and there we are, at about 3200 meters on the highest mountain in the Trentino region. Today we are the first to see the birth of a new day, live and as close to the stage as possible.

by Francesco Salvaterra

Thanks to: Ferrino, Zamberlan, Climbing Technology, Lizard