Today, it is difficult to imagine the Dolomites without marked trails, mountain huts, via ferratas and hundreds of climbing routes. The mountains have names, their elevations are known precisely, their walls have been climbed in every direction, and many routes first opened more than a century ago are now part of the mountaineering tradition.
In the mid-19th century, people had a very different relationship with these mountains.
The people who lived in the valleys had always known these mountains, but they ventured into them mainly out of necessity. They went up to hunt, work in the forests, reach high pastures, cross mountain passes or travel from one valley to another. The idea of climbing a peak simply because it was there — out of curiosity, to explore it, or for the pleasure of reaching its summit — belonged to an entirely new way of looking at the mountains.
It was during these years that travellers, naturalists and mountaineers from European cities began arriving in the Dolomites. To them, these mountains were a territory that remained largely unexplored. They were facing a peak for which there was as yet no established normal route, known and passed down through generations of mountaineers.
But they were not entering an unknown land: they encountered men who knew these places intimately, although they ventured into the mountains for very different reasons.
The history of mountaineering in the Dolomites grew, in part, out of the meeting of these two worlds.
Mount Pelmo and a new idea of the mountains
One date is traditionally regarded as the beginning of mountaineering in the Dolomites: 19 September 1857.
On that day, the Irishman John Ball reached the summit of Pelmo. A naturalist, traveller and politician, Ball would later become the first president of the British Alpine Club, founded that same year.
His account of the ascent takes us back to a world far removed from mountaineering as we know it today: little information and rudimentary equipment.
They were facing a mountain on which there was as yet no established normal route, known and passed down through generations of mountaineers. His ascent is generally regarded as the first major documented climb in the history of mountaineering in the Dolomites.
This does not necessarily mean that no one had previously reached the great summits of the Dolomites. Hunters and people from the valleys may well have climbed very high without leaving any written record of their ascents.
Before the history of the mountains became the history of mountaineering, it was above all the story of people who went into them to live and work.
With Ball, however, something changed. The summit itself became the purpose of the journey.
During those same years, this new passion was spreading throughout the Alps. The Alpine Club was founded in London in 1857; the Österreichischer Alpenverein was established in Vienna in 1862, followed the next year by the Club Alpino Italiano in Turin.
Mountains were taking on a new meaning. They were no longer simply places to cross, study or contemplate: they were becoming places to explore and, above all, to climb.
It was in this atmosphere that a young Viennese man arrived in the Dolomites, destined to play a fundamental role in their mountaineering history.
Paul Grohmann and the men of Cortina
Paul Grohmann first came to Cortina in 1862. He was young, wealthy and passionate about the mountains, and was one of the founders of the Österreichischer Alpenverein.
He was interested in far more than climbing. He explored, observed, measured elevations and gathered information. The Dolomites held a particular fascination for him precisely because, from a mountaineering perspective, there was still so much to discover.
But to climb these mountains, he needed men who knew how to move through terrain that was still unfamiliar to him.
At the time, Cortina had no organised group of mountain guides. Instead, there were chamois hunters, woodsmen and other local men accustomed to moving through steep and difficult terrain.
They knew the approaches, scree slopes, gullies, passes and ledges; above all, they knew how to read the terrain and sense where a possible way through might be found.
Grohmann turned to them.
Among these men were several whose names would become part of Cortina’s mountaineering history: Francesco Lacedelli, known as Chéco da Melères, Santo Siorpaes, and the brothers Angelo and Fulgenzio Dimai.
On 29 August 1863, Grohmann set out with Francesco Lacedelli to climb one of the Tofane.
When they reached Forcella Fontananegra, they were faced with a choice. Lacedelli asked Grohmann which Tofana he wanted to climb, and Grohmann simply replied: the highest one.
There was just one problem: Lacedelli was not certain which one was the highest, so he chose Tofana di Mezzo.
It turned out to be the right choice: at 3,244 metres, Tofana di Mezzo is indeed the highest of the Tofane, although it is only slightly higher than the neighbouring Tofana di Dentro.
The episode may seem amusing today, when all it takes is a map or a smartphone to check the elevation and location of any summit. But it captures that moment in history perfectly. The local men had an intimate knowledge of the terrain they moved through, yet the geography of the great peaks had not yet been measured and described with the precision we take for granted today.
That day, Grohmann and Lacedelli reached the summit of Tofana di Mezzo, completing its first documented ascent. An extraordinary era had begun.
Mountaineering in the Dolomites: the years of the great first ascents
After Tofana di Mezzo, the ascents followed in rapid succession. In 1863, Grohmann also climbed Antelao; the following year saw the first ascents of Tofana di Rozes, Sorapìs and the highest summit of the Marmolada. Cristallo and other major peaks followed, until 1869, when Grohmann also reached the summits of Sassolungo and Cima Grande di Lavaredo.
But there is no need to turn those years into a long list of first ascents to understand their importance. What matters is that, in the space of just a few years, the mountaineering geography of the Dolomites was being transformed.
One summit after another was climbed, described and written about. Information began to circulate, new mountaineers arrived, and the experience gained on one ascent could be applied to the next.
In 1877, Grohmann published Wanderungen in den Dolomiten in Vienna, a volume of more than three hundred pages in which he brought together routes, ascents and observations from his travels through the Dolomites. Considerable space was devoted to the mountains around Ampezzo. The book helped introduce these mountains to a wider European audience, at a time when the Dolomites were beginning to attract increasing numbers of travellers and mountaineers.
And the men who had accompanied those first explorers began to be sought out precisely because of that experience.
The 1864 ascent of the Marmolada illustrates this transition particularly well.
Among Grohmann’s companions from Cortina was Fulgenzio Dimai, Jènzio Deo, a hunter and blacksmith. To tackle the ice of the Marmolada, Fulgenzio designed and made his own six-point crampons, an evolution of the simpler devices used at the time. It may seem like a small detail, but it tells us a great deal about these men and about the kind of mountaineering that was beginning to emerge.
The specialised equipment we take for granted today did not yet exist. Faced with a new problem, they had to find a solution: adapt what was already available or make a different tool themselves.
In the same way, the role of those who accompanied the climbers was changing. Strength, courage and local knowledge were no longer enough.
A specific set of skills was becoming increasingly important: choosing a route, assessing the terrain, dealing with difficulties and, above all, leading another person in the mountains and taking responsibility for their safety.
The hunter who knew of a possible way through was becoming the man another mountaineer would seek out to follow that route or attempt a new mountain.
What had initially developed almost spontaneously from the encounter between a traveller and a local man was becoming a profession.
From local companion to mountain guide
The transition did not happen overnight. At the time, Cortina was part of the County of Tyrol within the Austrian Empire, and as early as 11 May 1865, an ordinance issued by the Imperial-Royal Lieutenancy in Innsbruck laid down rules for the establishment of mountain guides in the Ampezzo district.
The very fact that the authorities felt the need to regulate this activity shows how rapidly it was developing.
In the years that followed, the professional role of the mountain guide was defined with increasing precision, culminating in the regulations of 1871.
Reading them today is particularly fascinating because, behind the administrative language of the time, we can recognise many of the principles that still define the mountain guiding profession. It was not enough simply to claim to be an experienced mountaineer.
To be authorised, a guide had to be of good repute, demonstrate irreproachable conduct and prove that he possessed the skills required to work as a guide.
Each guide was issued a guide’s identification booklet, containing his personal details and the routes for which he had been deemed qualified. The booklet also included the regulations, official fees and pages where travellers could leave testimonials.
But even more interesting were the guide’s duties.
A guide was required to do everything possible to prevent accidents, warn his client of dangers and provide assistance when needed.
He was expected to behave honestly, courteously and helpfully. He was also required to possess a suitable rope and was specifically obliged to carry and use it on mountains where it was necessary.
Even then, there was a principle that remains deeply rooted in the culture of mountain guides today: the duty to assist in rescue. If a traveller who had set out without a guide was reported missing, or was suspected of having been involved in an accident, every available guide was required to take part in the search and provide assistance.
There were established fees, responsibilities, inspections and penalties. A guide who seriously breached the regulations could lose his booklet and, with it, the right to practise his profession.
In just a few years, the hunter chosen because he knew a mountain well had evolved into a professional recognised by the authorities, with clearly defined responsibilities towards both his client and the wider community.
Fulgenzio Dimai and the birth of mountain guiding in Cortina
Fulgenzio Dimai was one of the men who had experienced this transformation first-hand.
When, on 21 July 1871, he received his licence to work as a Bergführer from the Imperial-Royal District Authority of Ampezzo, Fulgenzio was certainly no newcomer to the mountains.
He had already taken part in the great era of first ascents with Grohmann, had climbed the Marmolada and had even made some of the equipment needed for the ascent. The licence did not suddenly turn Fulgenzio into a mountain guide; rather, it formally recognised a profession that had already taken shape in the mountains during the preceding years.
The Cortina Mountain Guides date the beginning of their history to 21 July 1871.
But the significance of that date goes beyond the document issued to Fulgenzio. It does not simply mark the official birth of a profession. It represents the culmination of a transformation that had begun several years earlier, when the first mountaineers arriving from European cities encountered the people of the Dolomite valleys.
On one side was the desire to reach summits that mountaineers had yet to explore. On the other was a knowledge of the mountains built up over generations, through necessity and work. From the meeting of these two worlds emerged a new figure: the mountain guide — a man who no longer climbed only for himself, to hunt or to work, but placed his experience at the service of another person and assumed responsibility for their safety.
In Cortina, the story that began more than a century and a half ago has continued without interruption.
For me, this story also has a small personal significance. My great-grandfather, Tobia Menardi “Amanaco”, was a mountain guide in Cortina and, several generations later, I chose the same profession. It is a family connection with this profession that has always been part of my life and makes telling its story even more meaningful to me.
And, of course, the history of mountaineering in the Dolomites did not stop there.
The great summits had been reached, but the Dolomites still had walls, ridges and routes that remained completely unexplored. The next generation would no longer simply ask how to reach a summit.
They would begin to ask which face to climb.
And among Cortina’s mountain guides, one of the leading figures of this new era would be Antonio Dimai.
Bibliography
- Franco Fini, Carlo Gandini, Le guide di Cortina d’Ampezzo, Zanichelli.
- Paul Grohmann, Wanderungen in den Dolomiten, 1877.
- John Ball, account of the ascent of Pelmo on 19 September 1857, Alpine Journal.
Photo credits
- Archive of the Guide Alpine Cortina d’Ampezzo.
- Photographic collection of Carlo Gandini Carlin.
In the next article
Antonio Dimai and the evolution of mountaineering in the Dolomites
After the great summits had been conquered, mountaineering in the Dolomites changed profoundly. Antonio Dimai ushered in the era of great walls, new routes and an entirely different way of experiencing the mountains.
