Presanella Northface

Facts: Cima Presanella 3558m, Northface, Ice wall up to 58° steep, Presanellagroup Italy.

This is our story…

Due to the fact that there is still sooooo much snow on the mountains and the motivation is never ending, me and Liz decided to drive south and make an attempt of climbing and skiing the Northface of Presanella…

Two women on tour…

Drove to Bozen – Mendelpass – Stavel (close to Passo Tonale). There you can either start at the parking place in Stavel, 1360 m or have the option to drive up to Pozzi Alti, 1884m… We took option number two. Getting up there was already quite an adventure… Driving up a small, bumpy forrest road where you just hope that no other car is coming into your direction… Where to pass? No Chance…

Liz actually tried to call @ Rifugio Denza to ask if they are open or at least if there are blankets for the bivy… No chance to reach anyone… That’s Italy 😉 Love it there!

After an adventurous ride up the mountain we were not the only ones… Surprise, surprise… Liz speaks perfect italian, so now we knew that the rifugio would be open… Also good…

The weather forecast was right… Half way up to the hut it started to rain and thunderbolt accompanied us on our way up… We were lucky that we started to hike in our touring boots as there was still lots of snow, mud and water on the small hiking path… Just before it started to get dark, we reached the hut…

Crowded there and when the very friendly hut owner asked: “two women?”, we felt for a moment like little stars in the crowd of nearly just men… A rope team consisting of a man and woman is quite normal nowadays but if two women show up it’s always something special… The guys were interested in what our plans were and so we told them while eating our traveldinner…

As the rifugio was open, the bivy was locked and we stayed in the hut and shared the few hours with I guess 15 italians, where at least five of them were snorring like hell 😉 It’s always the same in a mass storage room – you can hardly sleep unless you sleep in before the crowd starts to snore 😉 hahhaa…

Around 1 a.m. the first Alarm clock started to ring at my neighbours place… Fail… But then at 3 a.m. the guys kept moving, starting to get ready and have breakfast downstairs… Liz and me took it easy, had our breakfast upstairs in peace, packed our stuff and started our hike at 4 a.m. I have never before had such a non-stressful start in the day… Nobody was hurrying, a very good vibe on the mountain while skinning up, talkative guys…

We were good in time, no rush, no hurry… Around 7 a.m. we were already at the bottom of the nearly 500 hm ice wall… By now a couple of other mountaineers were climbing up…

At 8 a.m. where the conditions were still very, very hard, two skiers came down and brought a lot of sluff and icy snow balls down… Of course they tried to avoid that but impossible… First Liz got hit by a snowball in the face… A minute later it was my turn… A cut in the lip and one of my glasses broken… And the best thing – I didn’t recognize it that one of my glasses were gone 😉 Just felt a little weird… And I guess I looked like a little weirdo from now on but nobody told me ;-)…

After 5 hours hike and climb we reached the summit of Cima Presanella… 9 a.m. Still sooooo early and the whole day in front of us… What an amazing view – two lucky girls standing on top of the summit…

After nearly an hour of sitting in the sun, studying the area and map, we started to get ready for the ski down… Skiing such steep faces is definetely a challenge, you have to be an experienced mountaineer for climbing up and additionally a very, very good skier because if you fail, you’re gone… Although it’s nothing new, Heini Holzer was one of the first famous steep skiers, I hope it’s gonna stay a small community because a lot of people tend to overestimate their abilities and that’s the wrong place for it…

Here are some snapshots from Lizs’ helmetcam while skiing down… Mine didn’t work… But camera view and the real experience differ anyway… Everything doesn’t look as steep or as hard as it actually is…

Quite good but still challenging conditions, especially in the shade of the face… Hard, harsh, tough… There were still three climbers in the wall, so we had to pay attention for them…

A ski sticking out in the middle of the face, down at the bottom the other ski and pole… What happened? We didn’t know until we skied further down and met two Italian guys… They asked for help and told us that a guy who skied the Northface by himself, crashed in the middle and slid the whole way down… Luckily they helped him, he broke his handwrist and was now hiking down to the hut… We took his backpack and skied to the hut… There we had a nice talk to the rifugio owner, such a helpful guy, who also is a professional mountain guide…

Our drinks at the hut tasted awesome and both of us had a big smile on our face… Proud of our achievement 🙂

We left Rifugio Denza, could ski a little further down until we had to repack our backpack, load up the heavy weight and hike down the remaining 400 altitude meters…

What a day! What a possitive vibe on the mountain! Grande! Bella Italia!!!! It’s soooo much more relaxed here 🙂 Awesome!!!!

Thanks Liz for sharing this wonderful adventure – it will stay in my mind for a long time! So many things have happened within that short amount of time… Intense… And there are still some things I haven’t even mentioned…

Looking forward for more adventures outdoors…

Enjoy your life – live it, don’t dream about it!!!! 🙂