South Tyrol hike and climb

Published on 2021-10-23 by Michael Stanton

After a great conversation with Danno, I quickly drove home and packed the van for a short adventure. I drove down to a rest stop in Austria to sleep, then started before dawn for Klausen in South Tyrol. Jong would meet me at the campground late at night, as he had duties to attend to in the city. I decided to hike up the local Klausen peak, Königsanger.

I started walking from the town of Verdignes / Verdings, up through Garn thence to pasture and working forest. Thick clouds rolled in from the north, but I thought the sun would burn through, so I took the side trail over to the Radlseehütte and it's beautiful lake. Over a cappucino I admired the gorgeous view of the Dolomite peaks to the east. A true lover admires the beloved from afar!

From here I hiked 20 minutes or so to the summit of Königsanger. By now the clouds lolled harmlessly in the valleys, seemingly content with their eventual dissolution. A number of hikers were coming up. I admired the peaks all around, and appreciated the metal installation that gave them names.

A beautiful sunrise.

His beautiful expression, seeing God through the pain of this world.

The Radlsee, with the Dolomites behind.

I'm just happy to be here sos I can look around.

Pilgrims coming up.

A neat installation.

What a great outdoor seating area!

What a great dinner!

I walked and even ran a bit going down. Soon I was installed at the campsite and taking a nap -- 1500 meters up and down was plenty! I walked into down for a delicious pizza. Oh no, I've become one of those people who takes pictures of their feeding tray!

Dolomites too cold!

Jong arrived at about 10:30 pm, and quickly went to sleep in the tent I brought along. We got going early, but found out that some temperatures are simply too cold, even with clear sky! The wind was bad and we just couldn't imagine rock climbing. So after a coffee at the Sella Pass, we decided to speed down and race for the Garda Lake.

Within a couple of hours we were stuffing gear into our packs at Sarche then walking over to hop on "Orizzonti Dolomitici" (V+, 10 pitches). I'd climbed this in 2018 with Silas. We thought it would make for a good half day climb. We had to wait a bit to get started, but it was good fun. Such an international bunch of folks -- Hungarians, Germans, Italians, Czech! All of Europe seemed to be here...

We were so interested in our conversation on the way down that we took a wrong turn and ended up walking on top of flood protection buttresses (actually, I'm not sure what they were), before hopping some fences to get to the street. We repaired to a campground, then walked into Arco for dinner and so Jong could buy some new climbing shoes. This dinner was okay, but not good enough to take a picture of!

Afterwards, more conversation and cigars, then a very good nights sleep.

In the morning, we ended to the Nago climbing area, where I'd been with Georg in 2020. We climbed 6 routes:

• Cibele - 5a 15m. Cold rock in the morning, a bit intimidating from the polish!
• Cobras - 5a 15m. Better.
• Il Calabrone - 5b 15m. An exciting roof is easily overcome on the left. Nice!
• Giochi d'Ombra - 5c 22m. My favorite route here. I love the length and sustained nature.
• Vogue - 6a 20m. Really nice!
• (Unnamed) - 5c 20m, left of Vogue. The first moves are really hard for the grade because of the polish.

Then we went to explore a crag we'd never been to called Regina del Lago. We got confused about the actual start. Interestingly, the error occurred when we were deep in a mutually incomprehensable conversation about the basis of religion, or religious ideas and their impulse. We finally had to give that up, but by then we'd ended up at the wrong location and spent 30 minutes wandering on a steep road above the lake, gradually discovering our error. Insert coin -- try again!

Finally we found the crag and it was crowded with a polygot assortment of Europeans. We climbed:

• Casa del Falco - 5c 10m. A good start, but pretty short.
• Pappa - 5a, 15m. I really liked this one. The views open up and there are tricky moves.
• Ernia - (first pitch) 5b, 25m. We tried the 5c A0 p2, but it was too confusing.
• Una per Tutti - pitch 1 5a, pitch 2 5c, 35m for both. Pitch 2 was especially nice.
• Spirito Libero - first pitch 5a 30m.
• Iris - 5c 10m. I failed at the 3rd clip, pawing for a handhold and missing it. For the rest of the day, Jong joked that fearfully grabbing carabiners was somehow my way of doing things and other comments along that line!

We were driving home just before darkness fell. So yeah, we would have loved to climb in the Dolomites, but Arco and it's beautiful rocks are a substitute no one can complain about! Thanks to Jong for the great companionship.