Via Collaborazione

Venturing into the Pale di San Lucano is a beautiful experience. Doing it to climb one of them becomes a unique adventure. And that is exactly what Stefano (my boyfriend) and I were looking for, after almost two months of forced quarantine because of Covid-19 and an irrepressible desire to live vertical nature. Like many, during the lockdown we could only devote ourselves to dreams and plans for the coming summer, and between stories read online, route descriptions leafed through in guidebooks and personal ties to many walls.. out came a pretty long list of routes, which this one summer certainly won’t be enough for, not even if we went every day! Among them, as a choice for the start of the season, the Pale di San Lucano came out on top. The reasons are many: the low altitude and therefore the absence of snow, the relatively warm climate, the long overall commitment, useful for “building a good base” for the season, and above all a great hunger for that nature that had been forbidden to us for two months.

I got to know the San Lucano valley in my childhood, thanks to family friends who have a second home in there and who, decidedly hospitable and welcoming, open their doors to anyone wanting to share the place with them. With a child’s eyes I couldn’t notice the singularity of the place, but I could certainly already appreciate its isolation, because there was no telephone, no operator’s mobile network had any signal, and because the whole day was spent up and down trails, summits and boral without ever meeting a living soul. The clearest childhood memory tied to the San Lucano house is an August night spent on a deckchair in the garden, where I couldn’t close my eyes, enchanted by the number of shooting stars crossing the sky without respite.

The years passed, the valley stayed right where it was, I broadened my horizons a great deal, learned to climb, discovered a huge passion in it, and returned there precisely to lay my hands on the long, steep rock walls that enclose it. What a summer that summer was.. The first that set off my addiction to big walls. With my valiant climbing partners of the season, Checco Marra and il Cinghio, we first climbed the north arête of the Agner and, within a few weeks, the Casarotto-Radin dihedral on the Spiz di Lagunaz. The two routes look each other in the eye, separated in the middle by the San Lucano valley: you climb one and automatically want to climb the other too. The experience on the Spiz di Lagunaz was very important for discovering the beauty of living such a long and complex itinerary, where the bivouac on the wall, reached after climbing the last pitches by headlamp with 1200 metres of void beneath our feet, was the key element to entering into symbiosis with it.

Stefano too climbed the same route just two months earlier (certainly a wiser choice, given the cooler temperatures!!). He didn’t tell me about the experience, because back then we barely knew each other, but I remember a Facebook post of his (very sporadic, at the time) where the same feelings that marked my own experience shone through: electrified by euphoria at the start and great satisfaction on the return.

So, accomplices of two experiences certainly different but in many ways similar, yesterday and the day before (24 and 25 May 2020) we returned to the Spiz di Lagunaz together. A lot of water has passed under the bridge in these years.. A whole day on the wall and bivouacs in the open are anything but a novelty, but the taste for adventure has stayed the same, and so has the desire to live this wild environment, and above all to live it together. We choose to climb the Collaborazione route, interesting for its collaborative style of first ascent, as the name says, and because a couple of friends recommended it.

When we lived in Padua, the drive separating us from the mountains was a moment to think again about the choice of route we wanted to climb, with a little anxiety about the possible difficulties, but then to let enthusiasm for what was to come prevail. And even if it was a beautiful moment in its own way, now luckily we no longer have to cross half of Veneto to reach them, so, without a second thought, at 4.30 p.m. we park the car at the legendary Baita del Tita, wolf down a banana in the hope of stretching our energy reserves as far as possible, and set off into the woods behind it. A little afraid of finding the forest completely blocked by the devastation of storm Vaia two years ago, we instead get away with just five slightly tangled minutes, and for the rest we reach the base of the plinth without a wrong step. Besides Vaia, the San Lucano valley suffered a heavy fire in the same period, and you can partly see the damage along the plinth, where the ground is burnt and loose. So the approach to the Spiz is now characterised by: a lot of sweat and just as much thirst, nettle stings, needles, leaves and soil stuck to sweaty bodies, with the addition of black marks from the fire and, above all, a great deal of hauling on trees to climb up and not slide back down! When after two and a half hours we reach the so-called “Hotel Massarotto”, our thoughts can only go to him, the great Lorenzo Massarotto, who must have climbed this plinth who knows how many times (and probably as many times on the way down), alone and with a pack that, given the gear of the time, must have weighed at least double ours, if not more. Our stay at the hotel is very pleasant: it’s just us, immersed in this castle of rock, we light a fire to warm up a little for dinner and then, tucked into the cave, sheltered from the cold wind that is blowing, we sleep peaceful dreams.

The 3 a.m. alarm comes early, we’re quickly on the move and soon find ourselves already below the central section of the route, after 250 metres of easy climbing on solid rock. Here the pace changes suddenly, and so does the rock: it is no longer so solid and perhaps we are still a bit “numb” from the winter, because we are not so relaxed hanging on these yellow rocks of dubious solidity. In any case, you can always protect well, and bit by bit we climb this long wall. We pass several sections on aid, unfortunately the pack on our shoulders and the speed required to get out in a day leave us no time to try otherwise. Contrary to expectations and the character of the area, it is very cold: we stay in our down jackets all day, with an unpleasant cold draught freezing our hands at every belay. We finish the hardest section with relief and resume a faster, more carefree pace to the top. Here we allow ourselves a short break to eat and drink something quickly, but then we set off again with determination, because the descent from the Spiz is almost like repeating half a climb! Three abseils drop us into the notch between the Spiz di Lagunaz and the Torre di Lagunaz, where we try to dig through our faded memory to recall where the weak point is to climb back up it, but unfortunately it’s like going onsight all over again. Everything goes smoothly, though, up to the summit and the subsequent abseils to set foot on Monte San Lucano. Unfortunately we can’t find the summit book (perhaps buried under snow?) and can’t leave our signature, nor reread those of various friends we know have passed up here. It’s always nice to read the names of people close to you who have climbed the same wall, each on their own journey. Even if in different years or days, it’s a bit like sharing it with them too.

We skirt the mountain along a chamois ledge with the ball of the sun now setting in front of us. The sun paints the meadows and walls with a magnificent light, but unfortunately we can’t stop it sinking, except with the camera. Another 150 metres of easy rock to downclimb, and here a snow slope catches us unexpectedly, gradually disappearing from view with the last light. In the dark we can’t find a way through without ending up above rocky steps, and we decide to stop for the night. With all the technical difficulties now behind us, in sweet company and with a sleeping bag in the pack, we take the decision to stop with an almost disarming calm. And so we live our second bivouac immersed in the Pale di San Lucano, this time lying on the grass with an incredible starry sky above us and a terribly icy draught that won’t let us sleep. What a night that night.. two little dots huddled together trying to steal a bit of warmth from each other, and a wafer-thin sliver of moon, we are the only ones lost up here.

With the morning light, finding the way through is very simple, and with a brisk walk we return happily to the car, dazed by the night’s frost now followed by the sun beating down hard.

Sitting barefoot on the asphalt, hands still throbbing from the rock’s abrasions and from the long walk with our arms hanging down, we imagine the Baita del Tita still in business, with its comings and goings of mysterious characters, some more, some less, “legendary” today, but all united by their love for this wild place. And we have a beer with them (or rather a coffee, given the hour), to toast hidden adventures!