Torre Trieste, Via Cassin - Ratti and never-ending beauty

There are things you’ve always known but yet you’ll never learn. There are things you’ve seen a thousand times and yet they always surprise you just like that very first time you laid your eyes on them. Take for example the Dolomites. Or, in this particular case, Torre Trieste on Mount Civetta. You might say that you know this mountain. That its shape is unmistakable. Yet when looking at the photos taken by Manrico Dell’Agnola, we couldn’t but be amazed by this true wonder. Manrico’s visions tell a thousand stories. The Trieste is an obelisk with its very own history, absolutely unique. At the same time though the Tower seems to play an an integral and fundamental part of the magnificent Civetta walls. Torre Trieste is both an island firmly anchored to the ground and a missile, ready to shoot towards the moon. With its thousands of folds, darting between the sun and shade, that animate the enormous face, arêtes and thousand different perspectives. Those of its huge saving ledges and immense overhangs. Then there’s the Torre Trieste and its alpinists. And their vertical visions between the air, rock and clouds as they make their way upwards towards the sky. All the way to that tiny balcony that overlooks such a yearned-for and solitary world. It is here that on 17 August 1935 Riccardo Cassin and Vittorio Ratti reached after three days of clibing. They had just breached 600m of the SE arête, an absolute first and a climb that proved both fascinating and unmissable. In a few days the route will celebrate its 82nd birthday and it has lost none of its charm. It is, and will always be, as beautiful as ever. A beauty of which one never tires. A beauty which enraptured Manrico Dall'Agnola who for the last three decades wanders across and climbs these Civetta walls on which he searches for, and often finds, new secrets and visions. Here's how Manrico introduced "his" Torre Trieste:

Torre Trieste by Manrico Dell'Agnola

There are mountains that have a hold on me. Torre Trieste is one of them, and the Cassin ridge is one of those routes that I could never stop climbing. It is not an adventure but a sunny and pleasant climb, well protected and fun, and almost never ordinary. In the mountains you rarely hope a cloud will hide the sun, but today we put our heads in the shaded crevices to keep from “melting” our brains. This heat weakens us, and the grip of our shoes does not help, but here, on the tower, the slightly cooler air allows us to breathe and the landscape is amazing. Andrea is standing on this exposed Dolomite “Cap Spire”; now we slip into the cool and easy chimneys leading directly to the summit. Pure fun on top of the world.


CHECK OUT THE TOPO OF THE VIA CASSIN-RATTI by MANRICO DELL'AGNOLA on www.sportful.com/via-cassin