New climb on iconic Campanile di Val Montanaia (Dolomites) by Fabio De Cesero, Luca Vallata

The Strapiombi Nord, the North Overhangs of Campanile di Val Montanaia, have played an enormous role in the history of climbing in the Dolomites; a role that appears completely disproportionate when one considers its modest stature and compares it to the mammoth size of other giants of the Pale Mountains.

The mere forty meters separating the North Terrace from the Balcony are laughable when set against, for example, the more than a thousand meters of the Solleder-Lettenbauer on the Northwest Face of the Civetta; however, starting in the 1920s, they were the stage for a hotly debated mountaineering controversy, which involved practically all the most important figures in Italian climbing (Piaz, Tissi, Cassin, Carlesso, Comici, Soravito, Mazzorana, to name a few), and which, in the minds of many climbers, still survives today.

The Vicenza-born climber Severino Casara claimed to have soloed, without shoes, without a rope, without witnesses, and on a rather foggy day (September 3, 1925), the first route through the North Overhangs. The route had already been attempted by a party led by the Fanton brothers, and their pitons remained on the wall, marking the highest point reached. These were at the start of a horizontal crack that shoots out (and still shoots out) to the right towards the void of the Northwest Ridge (known as the Sawtooth Ridge due to the shape of its profile).

The events that followed are better collected and told than ever before in the beautiful book "La verità obliqua di Severino Casara" by Italo Zandonella Callegher and Alessandro Gogna, and it serves no purpose here to recount them with any pretense of completeness. Suffice it to say that since then, climbers have always been divided between those who believe Casara's version and those who see the whole story as a great fabrication.

The debate was important because if the route had actually been climbed, it would have represented a further step forward, in terms of difficulty, compared to the famous Solleder-Lettenbauer on the Civetta, traditionally considered the first grade VI route in the Dolomites, opened, incidentally, in that same year of 1925.

After the great uproar caused by the Sawtooth Ridge, only a second ascent of the North Overhangs by an independent line followed: this was the work, in 1959, of Plinio Toso, known as Orso (from Murano) and Giuseppe Faggian, known as Bepi (from Pordenone), and it tackles the face centrally, aiming for an obvious yellowish dihedral.

I have traversed the North Overhangs dozens of times, four or five times on the ascent and all the other times on the descent, in most cases accompanying my guests on the Normal Route: the common descent for all routes goes down the north side via the famous Calata Piaz (on the Campanile almost everything has a name: pulpits, cracks, chimneys, ridges, descents, ledges...).

For a few years, my gaze kept falling on that clear section of wall to the left of the Toso-Faggian, crossed by a large, dark streak. To climb this line, Fabio De Cesero and I chose two clear days, the right partner, the right shoes, all the necessary equipment, and we also took many photos...

The first two pitches of the route, which lead to the North Terrace, had been climbed before, many years ago judging by the pitons. The third pitch, which climbs the North Overhangs, was opened by Fabio on September 4th, in six hours, with some sections of aid climbing and a mandatory free section around VII+.

On September 18th, the team reached the Balcony via the Tissi route and opened the remaining three pitches to the summit. On the same day, after better securing some unreliable pitons on the third pitch, it was freed, encountering overall difficulties of VIII+.

It's a short route, but we believe it is significant for all the reasons just explained. It's called La Poderosa and is dedicated to all the good people in Gaza and the West Bank who are humiliated, starved, and killed every day.