This year's romp through the Dolomites again began in the Val di Fassa. It's the natural base because Luigi's parents own a vacation home there, so he and family can stay for free. Anita found us a nice appartment in a neighboring village and thus began our third joint vacation in South Tyrol. As a warmup climb Luigi chose the "Masliner e Moroder" up the North face of the fourth Sella tower. Quite a warmup it should be!
The pictures don't quite do justice to just how steep this wall is. One thing to know about limestone is that it reacts with water. This leads to an easy rule of thumb when trying to gauge the angle of a limestone wall at a distance:
- Black rock is currently wet. Do not go there.
- Gray rock is frequently exposed to rain and has thus undergone some kind of chemical hardening process. This is the typical limestone look and usually implies less-than vertical terrain.
- Red or Yellow hues imply the rock has not reacted with a lot of water. Which usually means it's overhanging. Interesting moves to be found here ;-)
We didn't bring our hiking shoes up the tower, expecting to rappel down close to where we started. This calculation was mostly correct. If it wasn't for the fact that the couloir used for the descent is on the other side of the tower and we needed to come back around to our shoes. Not a lot of distance, but steep and very sharp scree that we now had to negotiate. Luigi chose to do so in climbing shoes while I tried my luck barefoot. We were both cursing and swearing. Not sure which approach was superior in the end, both proved to be painful options - bring your shoes!
We both managed a clean on-sight. Very satisfying and motivating start to two weeks of climbing vacation.
No comments:
Post a Comment