New mixed climb on Monte Taburlo in Italian Dolomites by Cassol, Da Canal, Vallata

Monte Taburlo is located in a somewhat forgotten-about corner of the Dolomites, especially when compared to other more famous places of the Ampezzo group. The most likely reason why one could pass below this mountain would be to then skin up Val de Antruilles on a ski mountaineering trip to reach the beautiful summit of Mt. Taè.

It is precisely for this reason that, while skinning up the valley with Elisa and Riccardo a week ago, we noticed a substantial line of ice that I had never seen before during my previous visits to the valley.

Without a moment's hesitation Riccardo and I knew that we absolutely had to return the following weekend. Davide Cassol would join us and, in doing so, our team would finally reunite. We're all almost exactly the same age, we started climbing together in high school and we hadn't all tied in to the same ropes since 2010 (!).

Davide hasn't changed that much since his heroic school days and managed to forget his ski boots at home; he forgot his ski boots at home and followed us on foot along the entire approach, sinking in to his waist and crawling across the snow, obviously not helped by us taking the mick. But "he's a strong lad" we tell ourselves and actually he reached the base of the route only shortly after us.

The climb was fairly long and took us the entire day; three initial pitches, not particularly difficult but not to be underestimated, were followed by majestic ice pitches. The most exciting pitch is certainly the first frozen wall, 50 steep meters of thin ice.

by Luca Vallata

Vallata thanks: Scarpa, www.samatari.it

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luca Vallata (@luca.vallata)