Torre Comici, Casara Route

Published on 2010-8-5 by Michael Stanton

"Casara" Route (IV+, 7 pitches)

In the morning it was raining. So much for one of the hard routes. It was also very cold. Finally, around 11 weather lightened up enough to make the hike back over the Col-de-Medo Pass for the Torre Comici. It was an easy climb, but at least a chance to get something done with my last day. We endured a long and tiring scree climb to reach the base. Jesse was pretty tired, and I definitely understood where he was coming from!

I had the first lead, up a IV+ dihedral and chimney. Near the end of the pitch, my fingers got really cold. With the wind whistling, me blowing on my fingers, and trying to negotiate the crux moves, things didn't look great for continuing. I reached the belay and Jesse said his motivation had just crumpled away. Realizing that we were looking at some only moderately-enjoyable hours of cold and mediocre climbing, I had no problem with leaving. I rapped and cleaned the gear, we zoomed down the scree and like that, my trip came to a close. Jesse would do some hiking and then continue a grand summer of climbing that is still going on.

Looking down on "Frozen Fingers Chimney"

The way beyond. Ech. Not very inspiring!

At least the anchor was good! (Yes, for the Dolomites, this is "bomber")

It had been great fun. I was really happy to meet and climb with Jesse. We had many great conversations and saw totally "eye to eye" on the meaning of and practice of the climbing game. I'm eager for him to come back. I'm positive we'll bite off some big chunks of our shared bigger goals. Including Saturday's Totenkirchl climb (described in another report), we'd climbed more than 70 pitches in 9 days.

Berg heil!