The Big Wall of the Dolomites: the north face of Mount Agner in Veneto. A historic route by the Messner brothers, and a breathtaking icefall below the summit, formed and climbed for the first time at the end of November, but from the top: Ultima Perla. Tyrolian Simon Gietl, German Michi Wohlleben and Swiss Lukas Hinterberger took on the complete climb from 27 to 29 December. Gietl and Wohlleben have given us their thoughts of a challenging climb where “falling was often not an option”.
Mount Agner is a colossus, even if it only rises to 2872 metres. Legend has it that its south side is dedicated to pastoral grazing, while its north side is a two-sided torpedo above the deep San Lucano valley in the Veneto region: on either side of a sharp 1600- metre-high northern ridge, climbed only in 1932, the north-eastern and north-western faces of the “Giant of the Dolomites” rise to between 1300 and 1500 metres.
The scene of some epic climbs, all of them difficult, these walls now boast just fifteen or so long rocky routes where pitons are rare and the rock is often tricky. “Even more than the Civetta wall, it was the Big Wall of Monte Agner that captivated me from the begining”, wrote Reinhold Messner.
THE NORTH FACE OF AGNER IN WINTER IS A MATTER FOR FEW.
FRANCESCO LAMO, ITALIAN ALPINE CLUB
The history of mountaineering on these walls, recognised as the highest in the Dolomites, is instructive: the