Simon Messner and Barbara Vigl snap up their Ice Age on Punta del Pin, Dolomites

Simon Messner from Italy's South Tyrol and Barbara Vigl from Austria's Tyrol have established a challenging and somewhat dangerous new climb up the west face of Punta del Pin, a minor summit close to Rotwand in the Sextner Dolomites.

The new route was climbed on the very cold 15th of August, hence the name Ice Age, and was ascended without falls by Messner with nuts, friends and extremely sparing use of pegs. The second and fourth pitches contain the crux, poorly protected grade VIII- climbing with a 10 meter runout.

Messner and Vigl swung leads and although they left all good pegs insitu, they removed those they felt were too poor to hold a fall. Repeat ascentionsts are advised to take a full rack of trad gear (including cams fro micro to Camalot #3, and thin wires) and plenty of thin pegs.

Messner told planetmountain.com that "our climb is a very alpine undertaking, past climbing that is difficult to protect and at times up very loose rock. In truth I wouldn’t really recommend it, but it’s testament to the adventurous climbing we did on that very cold and windy Thursday."

Links: FB Simon Messner, www.simon-messner.com, Salewa