Via Ferrata Tomaselli to Punta Fanes

July 19, 2025

The day after our successful afternoon speed mission on the Marino Bianchi route, Colin and I set our sights on the Cesco Tomaselli route up Punta Fanes. We were intrigued by the position of the route in the heart of the Tofana area and also its relatively high difficulty grade. We had originally considered doing the Col Dei Bos via ferrata as our way to access the high plateau near Lagazoui, but the weather looked like it was going to roll in pretty early in the afternoon, so we decided to focus on just the Tomaselli.

We rode the cable car up to the Lagazoui Hut, setting off from there down the busy trail at 10am. The approach wove steeply up towards the route with a switchback just before the saddle where the trail cuts through and the route splits off. We were at the plaque, geared up and starting to move just before 11am.

The very beginning of the route is reasonably steep as it traverses leftwards with a few fun moves before turning up the face and easing off pretty quickly. We enjoyed this bit and hoped that it wouldn’t be the only technical challenge of the route. The next sections were still fun even if easier and eventually brought us to a ledge where our route stayed right. From a prow, the final section of the route steepened back up nicely and we had a lot of fun from here through the summit, climbing as much as we could on the rock and ignoring the cable other than for clipping ourselves in. There’s an especially fun dihedral near the top and then an exposed slab making up the last section of the route.

We topped out at noon, having passed a few parties along the way. There were a couple of other parties enjoying the ambiance up there and we chatted them up for a bit before heading down the descent via ferrata. This route was reasonably steep in places and expeditiously brought us down to a trail on the East side of the peak. From here, it was a bit of loose gully descending until we were back on a well-worn trail. We decided to make a loop of it rather than going back up and over the saddle at the base of the route. This didn’t seem much longer and gave us some new views.

We decided to hike back up to the Lagazoui Hut at the end to enjoy lunch up there and ride the cable car back down. We made it there by 1:30pm, so about 3.5-hours hut to hut. A nice, warm meal with views was a perfect way to cap off the day and we were right to have not pushed our weather window since it started to rain just as we got back to the car.

Via Ferrata Bianchi to Cristallo Mezzo

July 18, 2025

Colin and I got the nod from our wives to take the afternoon together starting around our kiddo nap times, so we rendezvoused in Cortina at about 12:30pm, drove up to the Rio Gere chairlift, and hopped on as quickly as we could, bound for the Marino Bianchi route up Cristallo Mezzo. Upon reaching the top of the lift at 1:30pm, we saw a sign suggesting that it would keep running later than we’d thought—until 5pm. Was 3.5 hours enough time to do the scree gully ascent, route out and back, and descent? We weren’t sure but we decided to try.

After a brief descent from the lift and around the rifugio, we began the gully. It wasn’t so bad at first but eventually steepened and loosened enough that there were some moments of cursing. Nevertheless, my fitness felt really good and I was motivated to make that last chair down, so I blitzed up the ~2,300 ft gully in 45 minutes.

We geared up at the old, defunct rifugio and set off up the route from there at about 2:45pm. It was pretty mellow and meandering for the most part, punctuated by some steeper steps and ladders here and there. At 3:30pm, we finished the last little traverse to the summit. It was awesome to get this different vantage point from above Cortina having now been on many of the other peaks in the area. What a grand amphitheater of Dolomitic limestone!

Since it had taken us 2 hours to get here and we only had 1.5 hours to make it back to the lift, we decided to enjoy the views for a few minutes rather than immediately turning around. After getting our fill, we started down at 3:40pm, expecting to miss the lift and walk to the car. We enjoyed facing outwards on much of the descent, taking in the scenery and watching parties across the way walking across the Cliffhanger Bridge near the start of the Ivano Dibona. We were back at the saddle by 4:15pm and quickly removed our alpine diapers.

It turned out that the scree was perfect for surfing down and we were able to really open it up on the descent. We began to believe we could make it to the chairlift by 5pm and kept charging. At 4:50pm, we nodded to the chairlift operator as we loaded up to float back down to the car. Magic.

While it felt a bit rushed throughout, it was a great way to spend an afternoon with a good friend in the mountains. If we’d had more time, I would have liked to have added the first section of the Ivano Dibona to amortize the scree gully effort.

Lake Sorapis & Via Ferrata Alfonso Vandelli

July 15, 2025

Colin, Jen, Erica, and I arranged babysitters for our kids on the same day so we could all get out together in the mountains near Cortina. After some searching and discussion, we decided to head up to Lake Sorapis, with me and Colin bringing via ferrata gear to do whatever portion of the Giro del Sorapis we could with the time we had.

Instagram must have made Lake Sorapis famous because the parking and the trail were absolutely mobbed a little before 10am when we arrived after handing off our kids. There was an order of magnitude or two more people heading here compared to everything else we’d done in the Dolomites nearby so far. After a faster, wider trail for a while, the higher trial has enough rocky sections with drop-offs on the side that people were limited by the slowest folks and rarely able to pass. We scooted around folks where we could and otherwise resigned ourselves to moving much more slowly than we would have liked and having less time to explore up there. Oh well. We were adding to the crowds, too.

We made it the 4 miles or so to the lake in about 1.5 hours. It is gorgeous and easy to understand why it’s become so Instagram famous with such turquoise waters and encircling limestone cliffs. But it’s a pretty small lake in the grand scheme of things and, strangely, the hut up there isn’t built next to the lake. We took some obligatory group selfies and then Colin and I peeled off to see what we could do. We decided that the Alfonso Vandelli route to the East of the lake was the closest and would have the most technical climbing on it.

We cruised up toward the route through lush grassy areas before hitting a more martian landscape. There was another party gearing up at the base of the route with overnight packs on who graciously let us head by them. We moved as fast as we could while being safe, aiming to finish the route up to the high shoulder. We’d been given a time to be home by our wives and so we kept watching the clock, deciding if we’d be able to make it back if we pressed on. The climbing was surprisingly steep, exposed, and fun despite traversing a long ways up and left. We kept deciding to go up and made it to the shoulder just after 1pm, so about 1.5 hours from the lake.

We quickly turned around and downclimbed the route in about an hour. From here, we scampered back down to the hut, got caught in traffic for a little bit on the main trail, and decided to take the much-less traveled trail that gained and lost much more vertical to get home. At 3pm, we were at the high point of this exit, enjoying great views. One last pass at 3:15pm and we were heading down nasty, loose slopes for a bit before hooking into an old road that took us down to our car a little after 4pm.