The Comici-Dimai

It was about time that I visited the Dolomites. This region in northern Italy holds thousands of routes, stunning terrain, and cool towns with excellent food and wine. The classic route of them all is the Comici-Dimai on Cima Grande, one of the six Great North Faces of the Alps.

When we arrived after a long drive from Chamonix, the forecast called for three good days, so we warmed up on the Spigolo Giallo route on Cima Piccola, a steep introduction to Italian limestone. Despite looking chossy, the rock was really solid, but had some longer-than-desired runouts. Not a bad start to the trip!

The next day we took on a steeper and harder route, the Cassin on Cime Piccolissima. Yup, same Cassin who did that fun Alaska route! This route had several solid 5.10 pitches, and leading a long and runout 5.9 near the top was pretty exciting! Luckily there was gear in the spots where you really wanted it. A really fun route!

Now that we were warmed up, it was time to head to the north side. The Comici-Dimai is a classic of the Alps, but I really didn’t expect the climbing to be so good! Pitch after pitch of overhanging sustained climbing on perfect solid limestone made this one of the absolute best routes I’ve ever climbed. Truly every pitch was great!

The route starts off with a bang, the crux is the beginning traverse of the second pitch. If you count stepping on pitons, I freed it :) From here the route follows a logical series of features and ledges up the wall, which is overhanging for about 10 pitches or so. Despite being so steep and blank looking, every belay was on a comfortable ledge. The hardest pitch for me was in the middle of the route, and I pulled on pegs because 5.11 with a pack is no gimme! Another highlight was leading the traverse pitch up high, a ~5.9 with serious exposure. The easy pitch to the top of the route was pure fun, and after an hour or so of traversing to the south side and up a bunch of 4th class we were on the true summit.

The weather broke the day after Cima Grande, so we started to head back to France. Over the next few days we visited friends in Milan, ate more great Italian food, visited old castles, went sport climbing, took Everett on his first day of climbing, and plotted our next trip.