Tofana - Tridentine Road
In the last few weeks, finding a day when the weather is uncertain is really rare and so every day I go for a walk in the mountains giving vent to my imagination.
It's evening, I'm at home, I take the various climbing guides to decide where to venture the next day, I choose to opt for the Tofana di Rozes in particular for the Via Tridentina opened by Bonatti.
I am extremely fascinated by Walter Bonatti the man even before the mountaineer. His books have alleviated the burden of the lessons of Business Economics and many other subjects that forced me to sit and pretend to listen to topics that were light years away from me and my way of understanding life.
Page after page it seemed like we were walking alongside him across the endless deserts or bivouacking in the hammock next to his in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.
I phone Lota, who is immediately enthusiastic, and I also convince Francesca that it is a route that is within her reach and so the roped party is ready, all that remains is to agree on the material to bring.
The day begins with a bright sun and two steaming brioches brought by Lota, we head along the path towards the westernmost spur. I walk slightly ahead of my climbing companions, just enough to not hear their chatter, thus savoring the pleasure of searching for the start of the route.
The route is 13 pitches long and at the beginning, where the difficulties are limited, the rock is quite friable but then improves as you continue, offering some pitches with absolutely perfect rock.
It's August, the sun warms the wall and at the belay I enjoy the warmth along with a good amount of water. Lota agrees with me that the route is very beautiful and wild and this charges us even more, we continue finding few and shaky
nails, perhaps planted by the same person who wrote those books fueling the dreams and passions of entire generations of mountaineers.
We arrive at one of the stops and Francesca shows us her hands bleeding from the sharp rock, as well as a nice tear in her pants. She is not very used to this type of climb and still has to get used to the rock that is sometimes perfect and sometimes unstable.
The key pitches are bolted, but I prefer to take my time to feel out all the holds without rushing. If the bolts are really Bonatti's, I absolutely don't want to check their strength.
Overhanging dihedrals and black rock follow one another until reaching the end of the route which ends with rocks of grade II. We follow them in an up and down until the return path, the view is vast and the return is not so short.
On the way down you pass by some memories of the First World War: shacks made of tin and tunnels. I shudder to think that our grandparents were forced up there in the winter for months and months with the task of shooting and killing their peers.
From the moment we cross the via ferrata, in a short time we are at the Giussani refuge where we relax and jokingly count the cuts and bumps that the route has kindly given to Francesca.
For my part I can only be satisfied, I repeated a historic route with Francesca and Lota, perfect companions for this ascent which for me represents more than a normal climb in the Dolomites.
I found this route very interesting, mountaineering and certainly worthy of a repeat. It is a climb that requires good experience to find the route, which searches for the weak points of the wall with difficulty all over.
all in all contained. At its end the route continues along small walls with low difficulty, however I preferred to stay tied to my companions to be sure of never losing sight of them. The return, very panoramic, is not tiring
but it should absolutely not be underestimated especially in case of poor visibility.
Repeating an itinerary by the great Bonatti has a particular charm, a satisfaction that goes beyond the quality of the rock or the mere technical gesture.