Jake Fojtik

Into the Void: Via Comici on Cime Grande

August 19, 2020

Forgive the hyperbole in the title, but it felt appropriate considering the series of rappels we made in complete darkness, including not one but two where our ropes didn’t reach the ground, forcing a midnight jumar session. More on that later.  

We rolled out of Milan on Friday in Sid’s rented Mini-Cooper and drove the 5.5 hours to Rifugio Auronzo. Once in the Dolomites, rain was in and out, dropping water for a few minutes, then disappearing, the raining again. We’d hoped for a better weather window, and our initial plan was to set up shop for a few days at the Lavaredo Rifugio to climb some surrounding peaks before taking a crack at the Comici. But, despite disgusting 90 degree temperatures in Milan, the Dolomites had seen rain storms for most of August. Saturday was the best looking day, with only a 20% chance of rain in the afternoon. We had to go for it, and at least try. 

We stopped for lunch in Vittorio Veneto, and parked the car at Rifugio Auronzo in the afternoon. We schlepped our heavy packs - climbing and camping gear - to the Rifugio Lavaredo, the closest hut to the monstrous north face of the Tre Cime. 

The Tre Cime group is a cluster massive hunks of stone jutting rudely from the earth, like someone jammed splinters of limestone from the ground trying to pierce the sky. Some 1500m tall, the Cime Grande is a maze of couloirs, canal, spires, and scree fields on its south side, and nearly vertical on is north face. The Via Comici runs up the climber’s right side of the black and yellow north face. 

photo: quatrogrado.com

Before dinner, we scouted the approach and the ascent route, and asked the hut keeper about weather and conditions of the route. He said it’d be wet, especially near the top because of the rain the day before, and it might rain in the afternoon. On the internet, we read temperatures could drop below 0C on Saturday night; we elected to carry sleeping bags in case we needed to bivy. With alarms set for 4am, we went to bed. 

The Climb

We hiked out of the hut at about 4:15. I had a ‘pocket coffee’ that Sid gave me, put my clothes on and started walking. At the base of the wall, I had 1/2 a Kind bar and a few bites of chocolate. At about 5:30am we started climbing. Sid took the first lead, easily climbing the grade II pitch. I followed, then swung to lead pitch 2. At the top of pitch 2, we had a bit of miscommunication. I heard Sid yell ‘Oh Shit!’, followed by increasingly distant “ping-ping-ping”: the sound of his belay device skipping of the rocks below. I belayed Sid up, and we decided to continue, using my lone ATC for the lead belay, using a munter knot for the follower. 

Despite the dropped ATC, we kept climbing. Progress was otherwise quick, with efficient switches at belay stations. Sid led the first crux pitch, and I lead a beautiful dihedral crack. After another few swaps, Sid ended up on lead for the second and third crux pitches, and linked them together. I followed, and found some of the most taxing climbing I’d ever done. It wasn’t long before either of us pull on f the fixed gear in place on the wall as our forearms pumped out. Maybe we were slightly off route, or maybe we’d accidentally linked the two crix pitches, but the second crux kicked our asses.  Exhausted, Sid belayed out from 3 rusty pitons as I lead out on pitch 8, the last of the ‘hard’ pitches, and pulled onto the shelf separating the upper half from the lower half of the wall. It was about 11am. 

Sid working the first crux

Relief after pulling through pitch 8, onto the ‘easy’ climbing

People on the hiking trail far below

On the ledge on top of pitch 8, we both felt relieved. So long as we could make it through pitch 8, we could finish the climb. All that was above us was a few pitches of grade V or easier climbing, right?

We followed a obvious dihedral above the steep face. The next 5 pitches were inset in and under a broad roof, and held a significant amount of water from the rain the day before. Sid led pitch 9, but after the slugfest on pitch(es) 6-7, his right arm starting cramping up. I led the next three pitches in a row, moving delicately on sopping wet stone, and losing precious time trying to find secure gear placements that wouldn’t slide out. We were swimming upstream, reaching fingers, hands, and fists into slick black moss-filled cracks. The delicate climbing on irrigated limestone cost us more precious time. Eventually, Sid lead us out of the dihedral, and onto the exposed traverse pitch. We swapped the last two grade III pitches and clambered out to the ring traverse at 5:30pm, some 12 hours after we left the ground. 

The Descent

To descend the Cime Grande, the Via Normale, is the standard route. It’s a maze of downclimbs, traverses, and rappells. Guidebook time says about 3 hours from summit to hut. We took about 7, walking back to the hut at about 12:30am.  First, we couldn’t find the rappel anchors, or where the descent even started. We lost probably an hour looking for it. Next, we dropped down 2 double rappels to a scree field, searched for the next rappel station. Eventually a pair of German climbers came down and we followed them to the next rappel anchor. They took a single rappel to a ledge and traversed, while we continued in doubles, and dropped down to a rappel station below, and lost sight of them. We were tailed by a party of 4 Italians, who also seemed confused about which direction to go. 

It was dark now. Headlamps came out of the backpacks, and illuminated the limestone walls in search of the lifeline anchors. Since the guidebook said to take single length rappels, we decided it would be more prudent to move on a single rope so we wouldn’t miss stations. In the dark, we went down two more single rappels. At the terminus of a canale, Sid rappelled off cliff and found our ropes couldn’t reach the ground. I set up a belay and he climbed back up, and found an additional anchor. From our anchor, we could see the headlamps from the German party and hear them climbing directly below us, but couldn’t see the route to get down to them. 

From there, we rigged up another single rappel, and dropped into the opposite side.  In the inky black night, Sid rappelled over an overhang. We couldn’t see if our rope touched the ground, but Sid lowered anyways. After a few meters, he saw the rope ends in his headlamp, freely twisting in the cool dark night. He spent nearly an hour on an exhausting jumar back of the rope. It was about 11 pm when he made it back to the safety of our anchor.  On our ledge, we debated bivvying and waiting until morning to try to find the right way down. 

From below, we could hear the voices of the Italian party that was behind us. Somehow, they’d gotten below us, and not ended up on the same overhanging ledge. We shouted down to them, and asked if they could confirm our ropes reached the ground from where they were. We set up the rope for double rappel this time, and tossed our ropes. Through broken english, the Italians seemed to indicate our ropes were on the floor, and we rappelled into the darkness. The rappel was completely free hanging, under an overhanging roof, in total darkness. We couldn’t see the ground, we just had to trust the ropes were long enough. We were dropping into the night itself, into the void. 

After a long, silent rappel, my feet hit the ground. I detached, and coiled the rope. We walked out the rest of the way, downclimbing by headlamp. We hit the trail by 12:30 am and were back at the hut shortly after. There, under the blanket of starry night sky, we ate the rest of the food in our backpacks, and laughed about 7 hour de-proach. We crept back into the hut, where one of the staff was still awake. He poured us beers and made sandwiches. 

Debrief 

I’m still processing the events from that day/night, I still can’t quite believe we made it up that thing. It’s certainly the heaviest climbing objective I’ve undertaken, let alone complete. We climbed efficiently, and didn’t lose much time on the ascent. The descent was a different story. Despite dropping the ATC, bringing up the second climber on a munter worked well. Rappelling with the munter was laborious, and took longer than it should have. Our assessments of danger and difficulty were prudent and accurate, and we did a good job of staying on route on the ascent. We pulled on pins through some of the cruxes, and anchored into questionable anchors in some parts. Despite getting lost on the descent, we kept cool heads, remained calm, and worked the best we could to make it down, even considering the bivy option if necessary. Still, a 7 hour descent is ridiculous, and we should have know the exit route better.  I was scared, through most of the climb, and still can’t really believe I finished it. 

The Beta

This is a uber-classic route of steep, sustained climbing. The climbing is stout, and different guidebooks / websites will put it at different ranges, between VII and VI, or 5.10 on Mountain Project. I’d put it firmly in the realm of grade VII through some of the cruxes, approaching 6b, or 5.11a / 5.10d depending on your grading system. We found the difficulty estimates to be a bit unreliable: the pitches of grade VI on the main face felt soft for a VI, while the pitches of VII/VII- felt wicked hard. (note - we later found an modern guidebook that put the climb at 6b+). 

The ‘hard climbing’ does stop after pitch 8, but don’t underestimate the remaining lengths, they’re often wet and filled with moss. If you’re planning on doing this climb, I’d strongly recommend taking a day to the Via Normale just so you know the de-proach route. Rifugio Lavaredo is the closest hut, and it’s a nice hut, but be sure to call in advance to reserve a room. It costs 63 Euros for half-board (dinner & breakfast). Also, if you’re a caffeine fiend like me, bring some instant coffee or something - no one will be awake to brew your cappuccino at 5am when you leave the hut.

We brought double cams up to a BD number 2, but didn’t use all of them. Bring lots of extendable / alpine draws, there are lots of pins, nails, and pitons to clip, especially below pitch 8, but they are all of dubious strength, so you’ll probably want to back some of them up. I found a set of nuts useful, especially on the wet pitches in the upper dihedral where pins were few and far between and cams were prone to sliding on the slick wet rock. A party more comfortable with the terrain (read as: stronger climbers) can probably get away with a smaller rack, or if you’re Comici himself or Dani Arnold you can get away no rack at all. 


Here are some of the pages we drew beta from:


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