Tre Cime di Lavaredo 'Space Vertigo' repeated by Felix Kiem, Patrick Tirler

Space Vertigo had been on our minds for over a year now. So with the first period of stable weather in July, we tackled the impressive climb on Cima Ovest, just to the left of the big roof.

With 35 kilos of equipment, food and water each, we took the bus to Rifugio Auronzo and started climbing in the afternoon of Tuesday the 23rd. At nightfall, after the first three pitches, we set up the portaledge.

The next morning we had the 8a pitch for breakfast and then made good progress, climbing most of the hard pitches until we reached the belay of pitch 13, where we spent another night in the portaledge with plenty of air below us. The first 13 pitches consisted of 10 pitches between 7b and 8a and, in comparison, the two 7a+ almost felt like a short rest.

Our third day on the wall started with another 7b+ and the last pitch (7a+) in the steep yellow section of the wall. Up to this point, hauling hadn't been too much of a problem as the haulbag always hung free in the air, but when we reached the edge of the roof after pitch 14, the haulbag kept getting stuck and hauling only became possible with one of us accompanying the bag at all times.

Finally, on the evening of Thursday the 25th, we reached the summit. Luckily, two of our friends were also climbing a route on Cima Ovest and helped us descend with all our equipment, otherwise we would have had to spend another night on the summit as we were totally exhausted. Thanks to Vroni, Franz, Anna and Hanna for waiting for us!

Congratulations and respect to Ale Baú, Nicola Tondini and Claudio Migliorini for opening this great independent line in such an impressive style. Apart from the anchors, the route is only equipped with pitons and makes a maximum use of trad gear. It pushed us to our physical and mental limits and we are very happy to have completed the first repeat and individual free ascent of Space Vertigo.

We climbed all the pitches with swinging lead and Felix managed to free climb all the pitches, requiring two attempts on pitch 2 (7c+) and the crux pitch 4 (8a), while he flashed/onsighted all the other pitches. I for my part realised after the crux pitch that it would be enough of a challenge just to get to the summit in the three days available and consequently gave up on my free climbing quest to ensure Felix could get to the top on time.

by Patrick Tirler