The Delagokante is the one that features in every Dolomite calendar, numerous postcards and picture books. You’€™d never believe that a route of reasonable grade goes up the left hand skyline!
The Vajolet Towers lie in the Catenaccio group, high above and to the west of Val di Fassa in the western Dolomites. Terry and Bernie had been after the Delago for years but it does provide a slight logistics problem. First of all, you have to catch a little private bus up to the Gardeccia hut (only 9 euro return and it knocks 2-3 hours off the walk). Then you walk an hour to the Vajolet Hut, from where you can do the route. But better still is to walk another hour, up via ferrata, to the Alberto Hut, which is only 10 minutes from the start of the climb, facilitating a leisurely 8 am start. So this year we decided to go for it.
Already, even at the starting ledge, there is an aura of exposure. We were just beaten to the start by two young Austrian lads, who proved to be amenable climbing companions. Here you see Terry and Mario looking quite tense. Fortunately we knew that the belay stances all had cemented anchors. Unfortunately, there’€™s not much fixed in between.
But pitch 2 is the corker. From the small stance, you have to swing around to take the ridge on the left. We thought there’d be bolts or pegs but there’€™s nothing until an old peg, way above where you really needed it. So we were not really able to photograph this pitch, except for Bernie coming out of it. I can fairly confidently say it was the most exposed pitch I’d ever been on.
Last of all, a dramatic rappel heading for the chockstone bridge between the Delago and Stabler towers, the first and scariest of a number of rappels!
great :star: routes and great pictures Terry. :star:
but no cake
pics…. 😯 do you ever treat yourself after a good day out ❓
Looks like really spectacular climbing 😯
Yeah, we do treat ourselves but thses days its beer :love:
Hello Terry!
It was a really nice route.
Can u tell me about how pitch is the route and how much hard?
As u have seen there is a full classic route, or there are some belay dot as well?
😉
I’ve never made it to the vajolet towers, despite having been to the dolomites lots of times, but they look amazing! What a spectacular route!
Yeah, like you we’d never made it there before, though always wanted to. So this time we based ourselves in Val di Fassa and researched the route and the approach well. It paid off. Not only was it an incredible route but we found the Val di Fassa much cheaper than Cortina (where we had always based ourselves before) amd much livelier and friendlier. We had some great nights 😳
Really? I always found Val di Fassa very quiet, with not much going on. Did you stay in Canazei? I’ve usually been in Pozzo di Fassa.
Note Terry’s earlier comment to Ian: they treated themselves now with beer whereas earlier it used to be cakes! Might be the reason why they found Val di Fassa livelier … 😈
yeah, we stayed in Canazei – would definitely recommend it – good cheap B&B
One reason why it might have been more lively is that it was the Italian holiday time (August) and therefore very busy. We’ve normally been in July.
We plan on doing the route in two weeks ( July 2013 )
Thanks for the heads up.