Dolomites Climbing
The great discover of Dolomites

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Dolomites Climbing is a clear idea, the Dolomites are a unique place in the world and climbers know this. In our mountain climbers come from all nationalities. For those who like sport climbing, the Pale Mountains are one of the key destinations to visit. Milestones of the evolution of mountaineering were made in these mountains.

In the nineteenth century remember the rockclimbing of the early British explorers and the conquest of Pelmo by John Ball, accompanied by local guides and hunters, then came the Germans and Austrians as Paul Grohmann who first found a climbing path to the Tofane, Sorapiss, Marmolada and perhaps the king Antelao, or was the hunter Matteo Ossi from San Vito? But this's another story. Many other peaks were reached from Grohmann, always accompanied by local guides.


Many times they were hunters converted to the job of guides. The Austrian mountaineer-explorer found faithful companion in guide from Cortina as Lacedelli and Dimai who started the first generation of guides that are still valid forwarder of mountaineering in Cortina d'Ampezzo and are part of the legendary alpine group Scoiattoli (squirrels).

In 1877 there’s an episode that does raise the level of climbing in Dolomites Climbing: the first solo ascent of the Torre dei Sabbioni on Marmarole by Cesaletti: a guide from San Vito di Cadore. In the twentieth century early daring climbs of the fifth level by Preuss, Winkler, Dulfer, Piaz etc. Then in the thirties another step forwardt that made the Dolomites a testing and discovery ground: the climbs to sixth level of Comici, Cassin, Soldà, Carlesso etc...

Then in the sixties the explosion of artificial climbing or one with extensive use of artificial means to proceed as ladders, pressure and expansion nails with construction of direttissima drop of water on all the big wall climbs of the Dolomites with the climbs by Piussi, Scoiattoli and ropes German and French climbers. In the eighties the development of free climbing and the Dolomites Climbing are still the scene of achievement in this style that includes a climb in which the nails and other means of protection are used only for insurance and not for progression. It 'a style more pure because it is only used to climb the rock (remember all the TV spot in which Manolo climbed on the rocks with bare hands sometimes barefoot). Actors of this climb in the Dolomites are Maurizio Zanolla Manolo, Heinz Mariacher, Luisa Jovane, Maurizio Dall'Omo Massimo Da Pozzo and many others.

A look forward in Dolomites Climbing

The last frontier of Dolomites Climbing see the "free" way of old artificial ones as the way of the Spanish and Italian-Swiss in the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Three Peaks) with high levels and the openness of ways in the wall up to 8c level by several climbers including Mauro Bubu Bole, Kristoph Alex Huber and Heinz.

At this point two questions arise: What will be the development of mountaineering in the Dolomites? And another retrospective-existential: why the Dolomites with their not excessive height or the limited size were, are and will be, the world theater of Mountain Climbing? To the first we can answer: to posterity the hard decision, while to the second there is an explanation. The Dolomites, with their mineral structure born of the sea thanks to the action of microorganisms that in ancient times have deposited double carbonate of calcium and magnesium have a vertical wall, architecture and length, rare to meet elsewhere. Also more thanks to this Type of Rock and forms that have developed over the centuries the escalation that results is unique and different from what takes place on other types of wall and rock of the world.

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