The first ascent of K2 in 1954 marked one of the high points in the history of Ampezzo mountaineering, but of course the story did not end there. In the years that followed, successive generations of climbers continued to explore and reinterpret the walls of the Dolomites, .while techniques, equipment and, above all, the very idea of free climbing in Cortina gradually changed.
For many years, the sixth grade had represented the ultimate limit. The great routes opened between the 1930s and the 1950s had pushed free climbing to an extremely high level, but during the same period aid climbing had also become increasingly important. Pitons, carabiners and aid ladders made it possible to overcome walls that seemed to offer no natural means of progress, turning blank slabs, overhangs and roofs into climbable terrain where a climber could not have advanced using the holds in the rock alone.
This evolution also left a profound mark on climbing in Cortina. The Scoiattoli continued to open new routes and seek ever greater difficulties, while confronting a question that had come to concern mountaineers throughout Europe: how far was it legitimate to use artificial means to overcome a rock face?
From aid climbing to free climbing
During the 1960s, aid climbing reached extraordinary levels. One of the most striking examples in the mountains around Cortina was the route opened in 1966 by Ivano Dibona, Luciano Da Pozzo and Diego Valleferro on the south face of the Taè: a 400-metre route on which they used 350 pitons, including 180 pin bolts.
Pin bolts were fundamentally different from traditional pitons. Ordinary pitons were driven into natural cracks in the rock; placing a pin bolt, by contrast, required making a hole in the rock by hand. A climber could therefore create a point of progression even where the rock offered no natural possibility of advance.
Ivano Dibona was one of the strongest Ampezzo mountaineers of his generation and completed numerous climbs of great difficulty. His death in 1968, at the age of just twenty-five, while climbing with a client on the Cima Grande di Lavaredo, brought an exceptionally intense mountaineering career to an abrupt end. I have written about his story in greater detail in the article Ivano Dibona, a mountain guide from Cortina.
Yet just as aid climbing seemed to make almost any wall possible, an old idea was beginning to re-emerge elsewhere: to climb as far as possible using only the natural features offered by the rock.
It was not really a new idea. At the beginning of the twentieth century Paul Preuss had advocated a radical approach to free climbing, and in the following decades some of the greatest mountaineers had reached extraordinary levels of difficulty while relying almost entirely on their own climbing ability. With the rise of aid climbing, however, that tradition had receded into the background. During the 1960s, and especially the 1970s, it returned to centre stage, influenced in part by developments in the United States, Britain and other parts of Europe.
Existing routes also began to be viewed differently. Climbers started to attempt free passages that only a short time earlier had been overcome by pulling on pitons and using aid ladders. On new routes, the aim was increasingly to use as few pitons as possible and to climb the difficult passages rather than use equipment to make upward progress. It was not only technique that was changing: the very meaning of difficulty was changing too.
The limits of the sixth grade
For decades, the sixth grade had been regarded as the limit of human possibility. When the grading system developed by Welzenbach reached grade VI in the 1920s, the scale seemed to describe a definitive boundary: beyond it, there was supposed to be nothing.
Climbers, of course, continued to improve. Grade VI became increasingly differentiated, with ratings such as VI−, VI and VI+, but for a long time no one was prepared to acknowledge formally that the old limit had been surpassed. I have explored the history of this boundary, and the way it influenced the grading of climbing difficulty for decades, in greater detail in the article The sixth grade.
By the 1970s, however, the system could no longer hold. Climbers were reaching difficulties beyond those for which the original scale had been conceived, and in 1977 the UIAA finally decided to open the scale upwards. Grade VII officially appeared.
This was far more than a formal change. It meant recognising that there was no predetermined absolute limit and that difficulty could continue to increase along with the abilities of climbers.
A new way of climbing
The change did not, of course, originate in Cortina. As early as the 1950s and 1960s, some mountaineers in the Dolomites had continued to push free climbing to remarkable levels. Walter Philipp and Dieter Flamm on the Civetta, Armando Aste and Franco Solina on the Marmolada and, later, Reinhold Messner and other exceptionally strong climbers from the Dolomites and Eastern Alps had demonstrated that enormous possibilities still remained without systematic reliance on aid.
Other influences arrived during the 1970s. In the United States, particularly in Yosemite, and in Britain, a climbing culture was developing in which athletic movement, training and free climbing were becoming increasingly important. In Italy, these ideas found one of their best-known expressions in the Nuovo Mattino, a cultural movement associated above all with Piedmont and the figure of Gian Piero Motti. The mountains were no longer seen exclusively as a place of conquest, sacrifice and heroism. Climbing could also be playful, driven by curiosity, by the desire to explore one’s own abilities, or simply by the pleasure of moving on rock.
Places far from the Dolomites also became important reference points. The walls of the Verdon, in southern France, were an almost perfect expression of this new approach: huge vertical slabs dropping into the canyon, with no real summit to conquer. The climbing itself could become the purpose of the day.
In Cortina this transformation arrived gradually. The mountaineering tradition was strong, and the great mountain wall remained the natural arena in which climbers tested themselves. But between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the change became increasingly apparent.
I remember it well because these were the years when I began climbing myself. In 1978 I was still routinely using aid ladders on aid sections and climbing in mountain boots; in 1980, traditional footwear was still the norm.
Climbing shoes began to become widespread in Cortina in the early 1980s, and by 1982 I was using them myself. In a very short time they changed the way we used our feet, approached slabs and, more generally, moved on rock.
Of course, footwear was not the only thing that changed. Nuts and other forms of protection made it possible in many situations to protect a climb without placing pitons; ropes and harnesses became lighter and more practical.
Above all, however, training became increasingly important. Climbers sought out harder moves, worked on individual passages repeatedly, and climbing ability increasingly became something that could be developed systematically.
The walls take on a new meaning
From the late 1970s onwards, this new mentality also began to influence the routes opened by the Scoiattoli. Fewer pitons tended to be used, while interest in the difficulty of free climbing increased. Walls and slabs that might previously have seemed uninteresting because they were too smooth began to be viewed in a different light.
A small but significant example can be found at the Cinque Torri. In 1983 Franco Gaspari and Enrico Lacedelli opened Sir Biss on the Torre Grande. It was a short route, about 100 metres, but it crossed a very smooth wall between two older, easier routes: Via Armida on the right and Diedro Olga on the left. A section of rock that had until then remained untouched became the setting for a new, more technical and difficult style of climbing. The route was opened with just ten pitons and reached UIAA VI.
It was above all on the Spalti del Col Bechei, however, that the transformation became clearly visible during the first half of the 1980s. These relatively little-frequented walls provided ideal terrain for a generation seeking a different kind of difficulty from the past. In 1984 Stefano Dibona, Guido Salton, Adolfo Ciampitti and Paolo Baroldi opened a route of about 500 metres with difficulties up to UIAA VII, dedicating it to the memory of Giancarlo Milan. Soon afterwards Mario Dibona “Moro” and Paolo Bellodis opened Los Angeles ’84, 280 metres with difficulties up to VI+.
The clearest leap forward came with Mario Dibona “Moro” and Massimo Da Pozzo. Massimo is the son of Luciano Da Pozzo, a leading figure of the previous generation and, as we have seen, one of the climbers who opened the aid route on the Tofana di Mezzo in 1966. On the Spalti del Col Bechei they opened Thriller, 350 metres with difficulties up to VII and VII+, and Illusione ottica, 300 metres with even harder passages. Where the rock offered no possibility of natural protection, a small number of bolts were also placed during the first ascent.
It was no longer simply a matter of reaching a summit by way of a new face. The quality and difficulty of the climbing were becoming central to the choice of line itself.
From the great walls to the crags
Training on small cliffs was nothing new in Cortina. The Sasso di Colfiere, near Lake Ghedina, was a historic crag already used by earlier generations of mountaineers, as I have described in the article about the Sasso di Colfiere.
During the 1980s, however, the way these places were regarded began to change. The rise of free climbing and the pursuit of ever greater difficulty led climbers to seek out walls where they could systematically train movement, work on difficult sequences and repeat them again and again. Alongside the traditional venues, new sectors were developed with short routes protected by closely spaced bolts, allowing climbers to concentrate primarily on the difficulty of the climbing itself.
The walls of Son Pouses, beneath the Croda d’Ancona, and the Crepe d’Oucera, towards Passo Giau, were developed, the latter becoming one of the most important crags in the Cortina area. Other sectors appeared at Rio Gere, Becco d’Aial and Volpera, while new routes were added alongside the traditional climbs at the Cinque Torri.
It was a profound change. For generations, climbing had been almost inseparable from the mountain and the summit; now it could also be practised on walls only a few dozen metres high, repeating the same passage until it could finally be climbed. This new dimension did not replace mountaineering. For many climbers, instead, it became a laboratory in which to develop abilities that could then be taken back onto the great walls.
Grade VIII in the Dolomites
The results soon became apparent. In 1987 the route opened in 1966 by Ivano Dibona, Luciano Da Pozzo and Diego Valleferro on the east face of the Sperone Destro della Tofana di Mezzo was climbed free for the first time. Mario Lacedelli, Franco Bellodis “Fantorin”, Marco Da Pozzo, Alessandro Manaigo “Fido”, Franco Alverà “Boni” and Luciano Da Pozzo himself climbed the route using the original pitons and tackling difficulties of UIAA VIII.
Luciano Da Pozzo’s presence made that ascent particularly significant. Twenty-one years earlier he had taken part in the first ascent using aid; now he returned to the same wall and reached the summit without using aid ladders. In a single ascent, two different eras of climbing came together, along with a sense of continuity between generations.
That ascent perhaps illustrated better than any theory just how much climbing had changed in little more than twenty years: a route born in the era of aid climbing was being reinterpreted through free climbing.
In 1988 Luigi Majoni “Manin”, Mauro Olivotto and Alberto Bonafede opened Il dono dell’aquila on the south-west face of the Croda Marcora in the Sorapiss group: about 750 metres with difficulties approaching UIAA VIII. Luigi Majoni and Andrea Balbo opened Seul ’88 on the south face of the Taè, 400 metres climbed using only seventeen pitons, with difficulties from V to VI+ and one passage of VII.
Also on the Taè, Massimo Da Pozzo and Alfredo Bertinelli opened the Via del Parlamento italiano: 400 metres of very difficult climbing, up to UIAA VIII, using twelve pitons and two bolts. During the same season Da Pozzo also succeeded in free-climbing great historic routes such as the Hasse-Brandler on the Cima Grande di Lavaredo and the Schalet-Biasin on the Sass Maor, tackling difficulties that were now approaching UIAA IX.
The old boundary of the sixth grade had been left far behind.
From the mountains to competition climbing
In the years that followed, sport climbing became increasingly independent from mountaineering. Competitions, initially regarded with suspicion by part of the mountaineering world, gradually transformed climbing into a discipline in which athletic performance could be measured and compared independently of the mountains.
Cortina also produced a leading figure in this new phase. During the 1990s Luca Zardini “Canon”, a member of the Scoiattoli di Cortina, reached the highest levels of international sport climbing, finishing second in the World Cup.
The transition is significant. Little more than half a century earlier, the Scoiattoli had begun as a group of young friends climbing on the Cinque Torri and the mountains around Cortina.
Now one of their members was competing at the highest international level in a discipline which, although born from the same passion for rock, had developed rules, venues and objectives entirely different from those of traditional mountaineering.
Yet the two stories never became completely separate. The skills developed through training and sport climbing returned to the great walls, making it possible to free-climb difficulties that only a few decades earlier would have required the systematic use of aid.
New walls, old questions
The introduction of bolts on the great walls opened a debate that continues to this day. Unlike the pressure pitons used in aid climbing, bolts were normally used not for upward progress, but to protect the climber in the event of a fall. The climbing therefore remained free: hands and feet used only the natural holds and footholds in the rock, while quickdraws were clipped into the bolts and the rope passed through them.
As the level of difficulty increased, this possibility became increasingly important. On very compact slabs with no cracks, where traditional pitons or removable protection could not be used, a fall might otherwise have very serious consequences. Bolts therefore made it possible to free-climb extremely difficult passages while reducing the length and danger of a potential fall.
The debate had therefore moved onto somewhat different ground. It was no longer so much a question of using artificial means to overcome a passage, but of deciding how far a wall could legitimately be equipped to make the climbing safer. How many bolts should be used? Where should they be placed? Was it acceptable to drill the rock when traditional protection was available?
In a different form, a question that had accompanied the entire history of modern mountaineering had resurfaced: what should the relationship be between a climber’s ability, the technical means available and the natural features of the wall? The equipment had changed, and with it the nature of the problem, but the tension between freedom, safety and respect for the rock was destined to remain unresolved.
A story that continues
From the 1990s to the present day, climbing has developed in increasingly diverse directions. Sport climbing has reached technical levels that were once unimaginable; competitions have grown into an international discipline and eventually entered the Olympic programme; on the great walls, free climbing has continued to push the limits of difficulty higher, while modern bolt-protected routes have appeared alongside traditional climbs.
Today, very different approaches to climbing coexist in the Dolomites. There are routes on which climbers seek to leave the rock almost entirely untouched, using removable protection and very few pitons; modern routes equipped with bolts; great classic routes that continue to be climbed by successive generations of mountaineers; and crags where the difficulty of the movement itself is the principal objective.
I do not think any one of these forms can, by itself, explain what climbing has become. Each belongs to a different moment in its history and, very often, apparently new ideas bring back questions that mountaineers were already asking themselves many decades ago.
I was fortunate enough to experience part of this last transformation myself. When I began climbing in the late 1970s, aid ladders and mountain boots were still part of normal climbing equipment. Only a few years later we were wearing climbing shoes and trying to free-climb passages where previously we would have pulled ourselves up on pitons. It did not necessarily feel as though we were living through a historic transition: we were simply climbing and trying, as those before us had done, to discover how far we could go.
Conclusion
More than a hundred and fifty years have passed since the first great ascents with which this story began. Since then, equipment, techniques, standards of difficulty and even the reasons for climbing have changed. The walls, however, have remained the same.
They are the same walls that Grohmann studied while searching for a way to a still-unclimbed summit, that the first guides of Cortina learned to understand step by step, that Antonio Dimai and Angelo Dibona tackled in search of new lines, and that later generations of mountaineers have continued to climb, each with different equipment, abilities and ideas.
Perhaps this is the thread that runs through the whole story. Every generation has looked at those walls with new eyes and discovered possibilities that the previous one had not yet imagined. A wall once considered impossible became a route; a passage climbed with aid was later climbed free; a grade once thought to represent the limit of human ability became, a few decades later, the terrain of a new generation.
And yet, when you are up there, some things have remained remarkably unchanged. The rock beneath your hands, the exposure, the search for a way through, the uncertainty of what you will find a few metres higher. Almost everything around the climber has changed, but that direct relationship with the mountain still runs through the entire history of mountaineering.
This story began in the mountains of Cortina long before our time. I have been fortunate enough to experience personally only a small part of it, and to know some of the men who helped shape it. Telling their story has also been a way of retracing their footsteps and understanding more clearly where the mountaineering we practise today has come from.
Bibliography
Giovanni Cenacchi, Gli Scoiattoli di Cortina – Storia e memoria di 50 anni d’alpinismo ampezzano, Edizioni Dolomiti, 1989.
Photo credits
The historical photographs come from the Scoiattoli di Cortina archive and the personal archive of Enrico Maioni.
