The Voice of Youth
August 4, 1982 — A Solo Ascent of the Costantini–Apollonio
Some memories remain quiet for years, until something — a phrase, a place, a simple gesture — suddenly brings them back to the surface. There isn’t always a reason for it, nor a logic: they just return, and with them come emotions, images, and sensations you thought you had forgotten.
It happened to me as well, carrying me back to a day when I was twenty-one and the mountains spoke to me with a different voice — clear, direct, and impetuous, like youth itself. It was August 4th, 1982.
Cortina in the Early Eighties
For many, the Eighties were years of music, change, and lightness. For me, they were mostly a time of mountains—lived with that enthusiasm only your twenties can give. In 1981, I had become a member of the Scoiattoli di Cortina, a milestone which for a local boy counted almost as much as a university degree.
At the same time, I was preparing for the exams to become a mountain guide, which I would complete in 1984.
To afford the training courses, I worked as much as necessary, and whenever I could, I escaped to climb. Not full days, as people might imagine today, but small fragments stolen from work and everyday life. Every free moment became a chance to climb.
In those years, solo climbing was simply a natural part of the way I lived the mountains. It wasn’t bravado or a way to impress anyone; It was an instinctive way of being on the rock, as it came naturally to me back then. At the Cinque Torri, climbing routes like the Miriam, the Olga, or the Diretta Dimai alone had become almost routine. Outside the Cinque Torri there had been other, longer solos too—such as the Dimai on Punta Fiames and the Dimai–Eötvös on the Tofana di Rozes.
The Day Before
On August 3rd, 1982, I was at the Cinque Torri. I remember the good weather, and that sense of lightness you feel when your body moves well and your mind is clear. I was driving down from the Cinque Torri hut in my trusty A112 Abarth—my faithful companion in those years—when, at a spot where the view suddenly opens, the South Pillar of the Tofana di Rozes appeared in front of me.
In that instant, I knew what I was going to do: the next day, I would go there, alone.
It wasn’t a plan I had been mulling over for a long time, nor a goal to tick off a list. It was simply an immediate decision—one of those you can’t fully explain, but you know it feels right. And so, without thinking too much about it, I decided that the following day I would climb the Pillar.
The Ascent – August 4th, 1982
On the morning of August 4th, I left the Dibona hut and started up toward the Costantini–Apollonio route. I moved lightly, without the weight of a pack full of ropes and hardware.
I don’t remember having many thoughts. As always before a solo climb, there were those brief flashes in which the image of a possible fall cuts across your mind like a sudden lightning strike.
But I already knew what would happen: that everything would vanish as soon as my hands touched the rock. Solo climbers know this transformation well—you enter a different world, made only of breathing, holds, and small precise movements. The rest disappears.
I began to climb. My pace was quick but not forced, letting my body speak for me. In a short time, I reached the first ledge.
The most demanding section came right after, between the two ledges, where two roofs mark the steepest part of the wall. Back then, around here, hardly anyone thought of climbing those moves free; you pulled on the pitons in A0 and moved up that way.
That’s why, unlike on most of my solo climbs, I carried a rope of about 18 feet and a harness. The idea, I admit, was naïve: I thought that clipping into two or three pitons at the same time would protect me if one of them happened to pop while I was pulling on it. I had no real idea what “fall factor” meant.
Today, when I think back to that, I almost have to smile.
But I was twenty-one, and at that age you trust instinct more than physics.
Luckily, every piton I pulled on stayed firmly in place.
The Second Ledge and Beyond
I reached the second ledge, where I found a German rope team sitting and having a snack. They looked at me in a strange silence, with that mix of curiosity and disbelief people keep for someone doing something they don’t quite understand. I greeted them with a nod and kept going, without breaking my rhythm.
Ahead of me lay the “Schiena di Mulo”—the Mule’s Back—a vertical, slightly damp chimney, a bit gloomy too. Today that section is harder because part of it has collapsed, but even then it wasn’t easy. It was a chimney that started deep and secure and then became progressively steeper, more overhanging, and more tiring.
I climbed through it, then continued on the easier pitches up to the end of the route, where the light seemed a little clearer than usual and the air a little lighter.
I didn’t feel triumph or euphoria.
It was something simpler: a deep calm, as if everything were exactly where it was supposed to be. I went down toward the Dibona, got into the car, and drove home with that strange feeling of having lived something important without yet knowing it.
What Remains
A Memory That Resurfaces
Some climbs stay with us not because of their “historical” value, but because of what they meant to us at that particular moment in life. My solo ascent of the Costantini–Apollonio is one of those. It wasn’t a challenge, nor a test of courage; it was simply a time in my life when climbing the Pillar alone felt natural.
I don’t remember every detail of that day, and I had even forgotten the exact date. I rediscovered it only thanks to my friend Andrea, who that day was climbing the First Arete and watched me as I moved unroped up the Pillar. He is one of those who write everything down: the day, the route, the partners, the conditions. I wasn’t like that. I simply lived.
And perhaps that’s fine. Some days don’t need to be recorded precisely—they just need to be lived.
Looking at That Young Man
When I think today of the young man I was in the springtime of my life, I’m struck by the distance I feel between him and me. That young man carried a lightness I no longer have, a carefree spirit that the responsibilities of years and of this profession have partly replaced with prudence. But he also had a purity in the way he lived the mountains—a purity I still recognize as mine, even if it has changed shape.
And maybe that’s precisely the point: a life spent in the mountains is made of different seasons, each with its own voice. There are days when you push, and days when you listen. Days that speak of strength, and days that reveal vulnerability.
Together, they form a single story.
A story not made only of successes or retreats, but of everything that lies in between: the unsure steps, the firm ones, the days we choose to remember, and the ones that resurface on their own. That August 4th, 1982, is one of them.
Finding That Route Again After Forty Years
Last summer, at sixty-four, I climbed the Pillar again—this time with a client I had never met before. As we moved up those passages I had once climbed unroped, I found myself thinking: “How on earth did I come up here without a rope?”
Today I no longer have the light, impulsive mindset of my twenties, and I wouldn’t go back on that route solo. But, paradoxically, it’s precisely this awareness that allows me to guide someone there with calm, clarity, and responsibility.
I don’t say this to boast—not at all.
I say it because the mountains change us, and returning to the same line after decades, with more caution, more experience, and another person to protect, is part of that transformation.
The Thread That Connects
Perhaps this is also why, when I wrote about the two climbs where I turned back, some people struggled to understand that those days don’t erase everything that came before. The truth is that no guide, no climber, no person is defined by a single moment.
My story is not only the story of the young man who climbed the Pillar alone, nor only that of the man who today sometimes chooses to retreat.
It is the meeting point between these two voices: the drive of youth and the experience accumulated over the years.
And it is right there, in that fragile and precious balance, that the courageous guide is born—not the one who never fears, but the one who keeps listening, choosing, learning.
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