August 1981

My wrist-watch alarm went off at 6.00 am. I roused Jeremy (16) and Donald (15) without difficulty - which is noteworthy. We had a quick breakfast and set off at 6.40, leaving Camilla, Jessica, Chris, Nicky and Julian still asleep in the Brentei Hut (2120 m). They planned to walk/scramble round the mountain by the Via delle Bochette in a different direction.

The weather was fine though there was a good deal of early morning mist and the sun was not yet up. We had an easy 40-minute walk to the foot of the climb. The Crozzon di Brenta is a huge mass, dominating the valley like the prow of a ship. The guidebook describes the North ridge as a long fine climb, one of the classic routes, Grade IV (equivalent to mild severe in Wales, a grade we knew we could manage). The length of the climb is 1000 metres, more than four times as long as anything I had done before. The estimated climbing time is 8 hours, but because we were three people, two of whom had no previous alpine experience, I expected we might take longer.

We had lent our best rope to Chris and Nicky (in the event they did not use it), and relied on my old double 125 ft rope of somewhat dubious strength. With this we roped up, me leading, Jeremy second and Donald last and started climbing at 7.20 a.m.

I did not enjoy the start much. The first 100 m were steep, quite hard climbing and route-finding, and there was masses of loose rock, so one was reluctant to trust one's weight to anything without testing it first. Also the nuts, which provide such excellent running belay protection in Wales, do not fit securely into the cracks in dolomite rock. Dolomite is Calcium Carbonate with 10-12% Magnesium Carbonate, very hard and rough with lots of hand and footholds, perhaps the best climbing rock in the world. But one needs pitons rather than nuts for protection, and we did not have any pitons.

After the first hour, the angle of the ridge relented. We learned to judge which holds were sound and which loose, and began to enjoy ourselves. We climbed a nice chimney, though we could probably have saved time by going round the corner and avoiding it. After that, we followed the line of least resistance, part scrambling part climbing, to half way up the ridge where, after five hours climbing, we stopped for lunch. Both Jeremy and Donald carried rucksacks, and we had taken liberal quantities of food and drink. Patches of mist hung about. In fact, we scarcely saw the sun all day and were unexpectedly chilly rather than too hot.

At this point the ridge steepens with a huge unclimbable wall on the left and similarly repellent overhangs on the right. The key to the face is a chimney which splits the wall and which we could see soaring up far above us. Donald climbed a short exposed groove, a good lead. We zig-zagged up towards the bottom of the chimney, following the only possible route and trusting that it would continue to be possible round the next corner. The sheer size of the face was daunting and our progress seemed terribly slow.

At last we got into the chimney which was vertical and 100 m high. It was a relief to get away from the exposure, except in two places where chock stones jammed in the chimney forced us to climb out onto the exposed face. But the compensating hazard, here and everywhere, was loose stones. One learned to tread with great delicacy, but the rope trailing behind kept on dislodging stones. Then those below had to crouch and duck while the stones rattled down round them and on down the face. We were quite lucky to avoid injury from falling stones. It was perhaps as well that no one else was on the face below (or above) us.

Donald led us up the chimney very capably. He led because he preferred doing that to carrying a rucksack. At one point, Jeremy had difficulty following with his rucksack, so we hauled the sacks up separately. The back of the chimney was wet and there were icicles and small patches of snow. The climbing was hard but never excessively so. At last Donald swung round one more chock stone and we were able to scramble round a ledge and on to the ridge again.

After that there was no major difficulty, and we reached the top of the Crozzon di Brenta (3118 m) at 6.20 p.m. after 11 hours on the face. The evening sun glowed warm and there were magnificent views of the Cima Brenta, the Campanile Alto and the Campanile Basso. There is an emergency bivouac hut measuring perhaps 8' by 5' by 5' with mattresses and blankets for four, and a marked helicopter landing spot.

The way off lies over the Cima Tosa (3173 m, the highest peak in the Brenta Dolomites), and down the other side to the Pedrotti hut. The guidebook says two hours for this. As our beds in the hut were only reserved till 8.00 p.m., we made haste to go down, but were dismayed to find a gash between our peak and the snow ridge of the Cima Tosa which we could see 400 m off. We abseiled down to the bottom of the gash and climbed up the other side (quite precarious, two pitons in place for protection).

When we found a second similar gash barring our way, Jeremy was for turning back to the bivouac hut, but I said we should go on. When we came to a third gash, it was clear that we had no hope of getting down that night. So at 8.00 p.m. we began a race with darkness back to the bivouac hut. By the time we had abseiled down into the first gash (with the bivouac hut 50m above us) it was totally dark and the Milky Way provided our only light. We tried to pull the abseil rope down but it jammed. This was unfortunate as we were not sure where the route up to the bivouac hut lay, nor even whether it was possible to climb up. Donald nobly climbed up unprotected and freed the rope. Then we roped up again for the last time that day, found a route up the face, and to our immense relief regained the bivouac hut at 9.45 p.m., after 15 hours of continuous exertion.

There were matches, pots and pans, and emergency flares in the hut (there was also a candle, but we did not find that till next morning). We ate some food and settled down for the night. It had been freezing outside. But with plenty of blankets Donald and I slept well, though Jeremy complained that he shivered all night. I had hoped to photograph the dawn, but woke at 9.45 a.m. and opened the door to find a blindingly bright still warm day.

After finishing our food, sucking some snow, and cleaning out the hut, we set off again. There proved to be five of those gashes between us and the top of the Cima Tosa. From each col, gullies fell away on either side down which dislodged stones rattled and echoed between vertical walls to far below. In many of the gullies were sheets of steep ice which made crossing them out of the question. It took us four hours of careful and intricate route-finding to cross the 400 m separating the Crozzon di Brenta from the Cima Tosa. We were roped throughout. It was difficult, exposed, required complete concentration. One felt puny in such steep and hostile terrain.

From the summit of the Cima Tosa, a long exposed scramble took us down to the Bocca D' Ambies and the path. We got to the Pedrotti hut after 7 hours descent (where the guidebook had said two) and were lucky to get the last three beds in the place. We tried to play cards, but found we could not keep our eyes open, and all went to bed early. The next day we walked easily down, and by a remarkable coincidence met Camilla, Jessica and the others returning from the northern end of the range.

Perhaps we bit off more than we could chew. We were lucky that no one sprained an ankle or got hit by a falling stone. We were also lucky with the weather. If any of these things had gone wrong, we might have been in trouble. On the other hand Jeremy and Donald were towers of strength and grew in stature as the going got tougher. At no time was there any panic or argument. We were able to rely on one another completely.

During our night in the bivouac hut we were 7 hours away from the nearest person. I have never been so far from humanity before. Indeed it would be difficult to find anywhere else in Europe where you have to go for 7 hours to find your nearest neighbour.

Falling objects are a hazard not confined to the mountains. Back in the fashionable skiing resort of Madonna di Campiglio, I was nearly hit by an alarm clock hurled by an unseen hand from an upper window.

Return to Family page or Home page or find out more about the author.