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Marmolada: 40 anni per il Falier, first winter ascent by Ruggero Zardini and Alessandro Rudatis

On 10 January 2015 Ruggero Zardini, a member of the Gruppo Scoiattoli di Cortina, and Alessandro Rudatis from Agordo made the first winter ascent of 40 anni per il Falier (7c+, 380m) up the immense South Face of Marmolada, a temple for climbing in the Dolomites and the Alps.

Planetmountain

February 2015

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Ruggero Zardini and Alessandro Rudatis making the first winter ascent of '40 anni per il Falier' (Marmolada, Dolomites)

archivio R. Zardini, A. Rudatis

"The route line is impressive, the crack which cuts through the central pillar can be made out from the hut below." These are the words of Roland Mittersteiner and Oliver Renzler. The route in question is '40 anni per il Falier' established in 1993 up the South Face of Marmolada by Igor Koller and Dino Kuran and freed in August 2010 by Mittersteiner and Renzler. Now these intense 380m that ascend the "Dorso dell’Elefante" pillar have been ascended in winter for the first time by Ruggero Zardini, a member of the Gruppo Scoiattoli di Cortina mountaineering club, and Alessandro Rudatis from the nearby Agordo valley. The duo repeated the line in 7 and a half hours and before letting them take over, we wanted to underline a small detail: the two met up at the Malga Ciapela car park simply to "give Marmolada’s South Face a whirl…"

40 ANNI PER IL FALIER - first winter ascent. The report by Ruggero Zardini and Alessandro Rudatis

"At the start of December I called Bobo: "Bobo, come on, let’s give Marmolada’s South Face a whirl." "Good idea, let’s speak after the Christmas holidays." At about 20.00 on Friday, January 9th, we met at parking lot of the Malga Ciapela campsite and without much ado we thought about what we could climb the next day. Out thoughts immediately turned to ‘40 anni per il Falier’, the magnificent route we’d both repeated free in 2011 and memories of the good times we’d spent together flooded back. We were excited to climb Marmolada’s South Face in winter and we reckoned ‘40 years’ would be suitable for a fast ascent as it finishes on the ledge at half-height. We chatted a bit, drank a couple of sips of grappa and soon morning dawned.

After a quick breakfast we set off at 6 for Val Ombretta, accompanied by a warm wind that became increasingly cold and strong the higher we got. Guided by the lights of our headtorches we reached the gully that leads to the start of the route. A couple of icy vertical bands of rock woke us up and we decided to rope up seeing that we didn’t have crampons and the first 30 meters were very dirty. We were both in high spirits and we felt we were about to enjoy a great day out, immersed in an environment we both care for and which was made a little bit wilder in winter.

The route looked perfect, we set off motivated but soon we realized that actually conditions weren’t ideal and we started to breach sections that were wet and covered in snow. Luckily where the biggest difficulties begin the route was dry and we quickly climbed the more demanding pitches, making moves that weren’t always particularly elegant, on the contrary… Every now and then one could hear a warning "watch out"…

As always time shot by, the sun was still high in sky although hidden by clouds, we had to move quickly if we didn’t want to descend in the dark and we set ourselves a time limit. At 15:45 we reached the half-height ledge and the end of the route, we hugged each other, happy to have spent another magnificent day together. We abseiled down the route and quickly returned to our rucksacks, crossed the gullies and enjoyed the last light of day, thinking about what we’d jus climbed and what we might do next."

TOPO: 40 anni per il Falier, Marmolada