Once in a Lifetime climbed integritas in Langental, Dolomites

In February 2018 Daniel Ladurner, Hannes Lemayr and Florian Riegler ascended an icefall on Col Turont in Val Lietres, high up above the Langental in the Dolomites, that they considered so beautiful and rare they called it Once in a Lifetime. A few days ago the trio returned and managed to climb the entire route on ice - according to Lemayr this is the first time in 25 years that the drip has formed from top to bottom. Riegler reports about this twice in a lifetime experience.

TWICE IN A LIFETIME by Florian Riegler

Daniel had been told that plenty of ice had formed on Once in a Lifetime. Simon Kehrer was probably the first to climb the route this season, and he did so by climbing all pitches except for the last one on ice.

I thought it would be brilliant to try the line again, so we waited a week in the hope that even more ice would form.

On 17 December Hannes, Daniel and I made our way up into the valley and were pleasantly surprised at how good the ice was. Unbelievable! All three of us together once again, up there in that unique place, we were happy!

As we’d hoped we managed to climb the entire route on ice, including the last thin drip. Another team followed behind us. Although this isn’t a great season for ice climbing in the Dolomites, here it seems to be growing steadily.

The drip is even more stable now and the difficulties shouldn’t ever be harder that WI5-.

If you bear in mind that last year we believed the ice was absolutely exceptional (Hannes has been observing this line for 25 years), perhaps now we should consider renaming the route ;-)