Cinque Torri, Punta Fiames...
6 June
The weather was still not getting better and it was again cloudy. We decided to wait again on Punta Fiames route and that day we went on Cinque Torri. We chose two routes and they were located on Torre Barancio which top rises up to 2308m height. The first route that we did was on the North Face and it is called “Dibona”. It is graded IV and it has 4 pitches. The second one is the North-West Corner and it was also graded IV with 3 pitches (see Rating Systems). They were both first climbed by the Dibona/Apollonio/Stefani party in September 1934. The difficulties on the first route were located in the fist half where we climbed through well-polished slabs; the intermittent rain was not helping either. But after that the terrain eased up and I ended the last pitch on the Torre Romana from where we made one 50m abseil. I liked the second route much more. It had a sustained difficulty level and again (like the day before) I moved through a well-sized corner/chimney.
- Cinque Torri
The chimney is actually in the crack between the two towers, Torre Barancio and Torre Romana - they are connected at the foot but the higher you go they split very visibly as seen from the second route.. When we finished climbing the first route it started raining and I thought that that would be it for that day. But actually the rain eased up and we decided to do a quick climb of the corner no matter how wet we would get. The moment when we started climbing it stopped raining, and the moment I collected the rope after the abseil it started raining again. It was a special moment, if felt like we were somehow rewarded for our decision…
7 June
The next morning the skies looked clear. They were much clear and bright and we decided to go on Punta Fiames. The mountain is 2240m high, and the route is on its south face called “ Via Comune”. It is a 400m long route with 15 pitches graded IV+ (see Rating Systems). After the approach (which we had researched a few days earlier) we came under the wall and started looking for the real chimney, at the foot of which it was written that the route starts. I think we started out about 3-4 meters to the left but anyway we came to the first belay stance and from there on, the route finding was easy. I was well absorbed in the climbing of the route and at one moment I felt I knew where the first party would have gone the next pitch, my guess turned out to be correct… It was nice climbing and we liked this route very much also. I must admit that I had doubts whether we should start or not since when we arrived the sky was covered with gray clouds and it looked like it would rain again. But we had delayed enough, and it was the second time we had made the approach – I guess we would have never come for a third time so we just started and later the sky cleared up a little. We both like climbing long routes no matter how easy/difficult they are. We like being exposed on a wall for few hours and being concentrated on the climb and on the difficulties that we are passing through. It is a special moment when you come down in the camp and look at the big face again and remembering how you went through the corner, and then the exposed traverse, then chimneys… I don’t know why – it is simply so. From the top of the route there was a short via ferrata (over fixed steel cord) to the summit from where first over a cairn marked path and then just by orientation we came to the gullies that were scree-filled and after 2 hours we were at our car.
- Punta Fiames
So we did nine routes in eight days during this first visit of ours in the Dolomites. It was a nice experience and we hope to visit this places again very soon since there are so many possibilities in a very vast and real alpine climbing area. We liked it especially because most of the time we were alone and climbing by ourselves in a nice (and sometimes wild) mountain environment was a special experience.
With utmost gratitude for his inspiration we dedicate these climbs to Sri Chinmoy.