Violet Towers

I didn't know anything about our intended destination in the Dolomites - the Violet Towers except for their colour. I was there with Andrea, Alberto, Max, Richard and his friend Dave. We met in the valley and used the mini bus shuttle service to arrive at rifugio Gardeccia, and then hiked the short path up to rifugio Preuss. Here we took advantage of the service cable car to port our sacks up to rifugio Alberto directly at the foot of our towers.

Saturday morning we were out early, and rewarded with perfect weather and no competition for our route. Our intended itinary was to climb all of the three towers starting first with the Spigolo Delago, then the Fehrmann finishing with the Winkler. Climbing in pairs we set off up the first, Torre Delago. The climbing was magnificently exposed following an arete on easy ground, and considering its popularity not polished. The summit was reached without problem, and our next objective Torre Stabeler stood just 5 metres away, but unobtainable directly due to the shear drop that separated the towers. First we had to descend by abseil to the base and then recommence the climb.

Richard was already way ahead, and bad route finding by myself put us further behind. (It pays to take a guide). The crux corner pitch had good climbing and was well protected. The summit was reached without incident, however the descent proved to be more problematic. It arrived without warning, the storm. Andrea and Max were secure on a ledge, Richard and Dave were way ahead on the ultimate tower, myself and Alberto were half way down the descent, first light rain, then hail, then heavy rain and thunder. The gully we were descending turned quickly into a waterfall, and we had no choice but to continue to descend.

It's incredible how difficult a rope becomes to pull through when wet, and shivering from cold I wished for my waterproof as my windcheater was proving to be highly inadequate. Of course we reached the base, and the storm passed. Continuing the adventure was never an option as we couldn't think of anything else other than to take a hot chocolate in the warmth of the rifugio. Andrea and Max arrived later, curiously appearing dry. Richard and Dave we could see still half way up the Torre Winkler. Richards rope had jammed in descent and he was re-climbing to retrieve it. As we were to learn later he considered to continue to reach the summit, but was over ruled by Dave. They arrived back to the rifugio completely dry. Apparently they had found a cave to shelter from the storm.

The towers once again looked splendid until enveloped in a new blanket of cloud. We comforted ourselves with some beers and vowed to return to the Torre Winkler, the final tower. The following day we descended. The setting was magnificent, and resting at the Preuss we watched a continuous line of day trekkers marching like an army of ants up the steep path to the towers. Rifugio Alberto proved to be very accommodating, with friendly staff. The rooms were clean and the food was good, even if most of the dishes were based on Polenta.