The historic feats of Ettore Castiglioni and Gian Battista Vinatzer, more than 80 years on.
More than eighty years on, I believe we cannot fail to recall two events that marked precise milestones in the history of Dolomite climbing: the ascent of the Marmolada’s south-west face of Punta Penia (29-31 August 1936) and of the south face of Punta Rocca (2-3 September 1936). Two episodes closely connected, or at least interdependent, not only because they took place on the same mountain’s great southern wall, but because the two undertakings shared common protagonists, and one was, in a way, a consequence of and a proud response to the other.
The alpinism of the 1930s was marked – particularly in the Dolomites – by so-called «great problems» that were gradually identified and that ended up becoming an obsession and the preserve of climbers generally belonging to the rather small circle of the best known and most accomplished.
In this attitude, «competitive» forms naturally emerged, driven by a strong desire for primacy and sometimes for national supremacy, which implicitly pitted — and sometimes set at odds — the best of European alpinism of the time.
The victory of the Germans Solleder-Lettenbauer on the north-west face of Civetta (1925), and that of Micheluzzi-Perathoner-Christomannos on the Marmolada’s south pillar (1929) — benchmarks and points of comparison for many years for every other Dolomite undertaking — were nothing more than a «thrust and parry» in the skirmishes of a sporting alpinism that, indirectly at least, found opportunistic momentum in the political ideologies of the time.
Even within the same nation the «race» was likewise open, and everyone sought, to the full extent of their abilities, eager to express them at their best, to build up partners capable of giving precise answers at the right moment.
Along this thread – obviously highly schematic – which seeks to grasp the footholds of a historical truth, the two events recalled at the outset took shape. For the purposes of this account, the more than 500 metres of sweep of the Marmolada’s south-west face, looking towards Contrin, constituted the first «problem». They were clearly there, in plain sight. Even the most distracted climber heading up to the refuge could not fail to notice that evidence, drawing the appropriate conclusions.
(Archivio Tutino)
Several climbers, mostly Austro-German, laid their hands on it, but serious attempts came only in 1935 from the Lombard Ettore Castiglioni (Ruffré, 28 August 1908 – Valmalenco, 12 March 1944), who, having completed his law studies, had devoted himself almost entirely to alpinism and to writing guidebooks for the major Dolomite groups.
In approaching the wall he brought with him Bruno Detassis (Trento, 24 June 1910 – Madonna di Campiglio, 8 May 2008), a Trentino blacksmith who was to embark on a brilliant climbing career, becoming — as he still is — a symbol of Dolomite climbing. Today, to say Brenta is to say Bruno Detassis, and vice versa.
They made their way up the wall, not without difficulty, managing to reach — after an uncomfortable bivouac — the great middle ledge. They returned to the base mainly because they were psychologically spent. They were nonetheless determined to come back the following year.
They duly returned in August, but they were not in peak form, as would have been necessary.
Castiglioni decided to «straighten out» the previous year’s route to make the line more aesthetically pleasing. They reached the middle ledge within the day, bivouacked, but the next day, on the great dihedral looming above them, they could not manage more than about twenty metres. They returned to the base with no small difficulty, with long abseils.
The setback, however, had not extinguished their desire for victory on that wall: they would return as soon as possible to try again.
Castiglioni left for the Aosta Valley to attend the Accademico congress being held at Valtournenche, but meanwhile Gino Soldà (Valdagno, 8 March 1907 – Recoaro Terme, 8 November 1989), the strong climber from Valdagno, went in person to the foot of the wall to see and to form his own judgement. The «Marmolada problem» had lodged itself in his mind because of all the talk he had heard in Cortina and Val di Fassa climbing circles.
He returned on 27 August with his partner Umberto Conforto, determined to make the attempt. Two days earlier (25 August), with Franco Bertoldi, he had completed a major feat: the north face of the Sassolungo.
To the disbelief of the many climbers and guides gathered at Contrin, on 28 August the two men from Vicenza, with astonishing speed, managed to reach the middle ledge and to gauge, more or less, the difficulties of the upper part of the wall.
They descended again to the refuge.
That evening they met Emilio Comici, who had come up there with a heavy thought in his heart for the south-west face. His long-suffered concerns were becoming a reality. They dined together, talked of many things, but about what was about to happen — not a word!
In that moment, both parties must have performed who-knows-what «acrobatics» to keep the cordiality of their relationship intact, while at the same time overcoming the «sixth grade» of a difficult, conflicting psychological situation.
At dawn on the 29th, Soldà and Conforto attacked the wall. They reached the middle ledge around midday, laden with their packs. They fixed roughly 60 metres of the dihedral above and, in the evening, returned to the ledge to bivouac.
The next day they managed to gain roughly another 60 metres of virgin wall: a stretch that demanded no small expenditure of energy. They were forced into a second bivouac on rope slings, with the weather decidedly turning for the worse.
Lashed by wind and sleet, they reached the summit of the Marmolada on the third day, after 36 hours of actual climbing.
While the victory raised their names, confirming them among the greats of Dolomite climbing, it simultaneously humiliated and embittered Castiglioni, who returned immediately to Contrin to settle accounts with «his problem», which others, in the meantime, unbeknownst to him, had already solved.
The Lombard climber met his demoralisation and dismay at once with action. He, who was compiling a guidebook to the Marmolada, could hardly not know of other open problems on its great wall? That very day he made contact with the most unassuming, yet equally strong, climber from Ortisei, Gian Battista Vinatzer (Ortisei, 24 February 1912 – Ortisei, 3 November 1993).
On the untouched limestone slab of more than 800 metres that plunges from Punta Rocca down to Valle Ombretta, the Gardena climber had already had a taste; he had at the time been roped with a climbing instructor who had soon shown his limits, so that, for safety’s reasons, Vinatzer had given up.
Castiglioni, meeting him at Passo Sella, convincingly proposed that he take up the climb again together with him. It was not hard to persuade him; besides, Vinatzer, aware of the attempts on the south-west face, had already told Castiglioni he was available should his climbing partner become unavailable. Now another opportunity was being offered to him.
Without further hesitation, on the morning of 2 September 1936, they set off to attack the wall.
Only 200 metres were gained on that first day of climbing, but how many, and what, difficulties were overcome!
The next day they continued their ascent. Vinatzer, an instinctive climber, as skilled as he was unassuming, yet sure of his own means and intentions, always leading the rope, handling passages that were at times very hard, managed to reach the comfortable ledge that divides the great wall.
The earthy-floored caves they found there, where at last one could adopt a natural position, were tempting for a comfortable bivouac, but given the hour it was a temptation to be resisted, to avoid long delays and weather risks. They continued to battle the wall’s difficulties.
With a long rightward deviation they gained the ridge and, along it, through a series of gullies, dihedrals and walls, reached the summit as darkness had already fallen.
They spent the night in the «Adriano Dallago» hut, savouring the joy of a magnificent victory, and for Castiglioni, of a great moral redemption.
Many years passed before the feat – emerging from a certain obscurity – attained the high standing it deserves in the ranking of the finest and most difficult Dolomite routes opened in the pre-war period.
It took the repeat ascents by the most illustrious names in European alpinism to bring to light the worth of a route that exalts free climbing pushed to the extreme limits (for its time), and the greatness of two protagonists: the one, Vinatzer, an instinctive climber since childhood, of a naturally strong, determined character; the other, Castiglioni, shaped and formed by a great culture combined with a great passion for the mountains, of which he could well be called the athlete, the «bard».
Since this last feat, and above all the relationship between the two protagonists, has never been written about very clearly, and there has been no shortage of insinuations that could cast shadows on that relationship (certain passages of the account, later published in the CAI’s R.M., written by Castiglioni himself in ironic-paradoxical terms, gave rise to misleading interpretations even in certain obituaries written after the Lombard climber’s death), I wanted to establish the truth by personally meeting Gian Battista Vinatzer at his home in Ortisei.
Relations with Ettore Castiglioni were always marked by sincere friendship, before, during and in the years following the Marmolada undertaking. There was never any friction of any kind between them. On the south face of Punta Rocca, Vinatzer always led the rope, spontaneously regarding his relationship with Castiglioni as one of guide-client-companion — «…even though I wasn’t yet a guide!» Vinatzer himself adds, alluding pointedly to the «application» that was regularly turned down through the fault of the valley’s guides.
Personally, I saw the «king of free climbing» moved to sobbing and tears on reading those passages of Castiglioni’s secret diary that concerned him and that he did not know. His companion in the great feat had written them on his way back from the Marmolada:
«In Battista, the closer I get to him, the more I find again the friend I had lost in Celso (Celso Gilberti, who fell on the Paganella on 11/6/1933, author’s note); the same limpid serenity, the same joy of life.
……
To Battista I was able to tell things about myself that perhaps I have never told anyone, things noted only in this diary; and in him I always found intimate and profound understanding, almost spontaneous and artless, given even more than by intelligence, by the kinship and affinity of our souls and our ideals.»
More than eighty years after the feat, may this testimony serve to restore intact a historical, but above all moral, truth.
Article by Tommaso Magalotti
(CAI Section of Cesena)
Taken from LA RIVISTA del CAI, December 1986