UKC

Can someone reccommend a guide for multi pitch climbing, around Cortina. We're climbing at vs.
Cheers

In reply to pff:

A human guide or a book ?

In reply to pff:
sorry about that, just a guide book please.
Id hope a human guide wouldnt care what grade we climb at.

In reply to pff:

This site in Italian is very popular over here (Dolomites).
http://www.quartogrado.com/
The idea of "quartogrado" or "grade four" climbs is what we would call "mid grade", which is around VS, perhaps with odd moves a bit harder that can usually be "zeroed" as required.
Bear in mind that Dolomite climbs are long and typically very exposed with wild scary abseil descents, so don't underestimate technically "easy" routes.

The site contents are also published as a series of guidebooks, for example:
http://www.ideamontagna.it/librimontagna/libro-alpinismo-montagna.asp?cod=1...
I know the 2 Western volumes were translated into English but not sure about the 2 Eastern volumes, which are probably the ones you want (perhaps just one of the two?).

In reply to pff:

Hi there are a couple

100 classic climbs in the Dolomites as a few editions , plenty of climbs at that level . Most of these can be found in the crag lists on ukc , type in cinque torre and you should find a few there .

Enjoy

In reply to pff:
Cheers for the info guys. Ill check the websites when i get acess to a laptop and printer.
The title says 100 climbs, does that actually mean 100 routes in the book?

In reply to kingjam:

+1 for quarto grado, much better than the east/west guide in English or 100 classics. There are several good versante sud ones too. Even the ones which aren't in English are pretty easy to follow, good topos etc.

In reply to pff:



approx 100 routes in the book yes but spread over a wide area, so not all accessible from Cortina. should be enough to keep you going for a week though, and nearly all the routes are around the Severe to E1 bracket so should probably give you enough to go at. search articles on here though, there have been a couple in the last few years which will be useful, and list other guidebooks too.

In reply to ripper:

http://www.climb-europe.com/RockClimbingShop/european-rock-climbing-guidebo...

The Mid Grade Trad Rock guides are excellent and the three that are translated into English are all on this link. I have used Climb Europe on several occasions and they have been very fast and efficient.

In reply to kingjam:


This is a good guidebook, even today 50 (?) years after it was first published. It was an enormous success and was translated from Italian into German, French, English, and possibly others. The consequence was that all the routes became international hyper-classics and are by now glossy smooth with number ticket dispensers at the bottom (so to speak). Local climbers now generally consider these as routes to be avoided.

It also perpetrated the idea that when climbing in the Dolomites it was best to move around constantly, doing one route in this group, another route in another group, with the implicit idea that each group really only had a few decent lines, that if you ticked your 100 Best then you had "done the Dolomites". A five minute tour of the National Gallery.

In reply to The Ivanator:

Thanks very much, do you know the difference between the guide books 1 & 2. Is 2 just a continuation or are they to be used together?

In reply to pff:

They both cover a similar area, but have completely independent route selections - worth having both.

In reply to pff:

You could try the Alpine Club guide. Has all the classic routes and lots lots more, and a snip at £10 for two volumes. It's a bit old style (dates from 2005, hence cheap) and doesn't have the low level more modern bolted routes (but you don't go to the Dolomites for them do you?).

In reply to Gerry:

Cheers for that guys. Gerry I presume that's the British Alpine club, I'll take a look there, you're right about the types of route we're looking to do.

In reply to pff:

I do not recommend the AC guide. Its well out of date, difficult to use and in my experience full of innacuracies.

I have done 11 trips to the Dollies and gave up on it long ago.

100 classics is a good start and whilst it is true that this very sucesful guidebook has concentrated too much traffic on too few routes there are still some uber classics in it not to be missed.

The new range of guides avaliable in german or italian are very good, I have not found these in english but despite my limited language skills I have coped.

I use the 100 classics to get a description of the descent in english and the far superior topos from the local gudes. This combination seems to work well.

For the Pala there are now 2 very good guide books avaliable in english.

In reply to pff:

The native german guides are by and large totally accurate and routes which get done more often than those in the AC guides, i.e. the fixed gear is usually in better condition. Watch out for 100 classics as there are some glaring errors in it - generally when I've come acropper it's because the topo doesn't match the line drawing or is just plainly wrong - I've checked them against the local guide after in shops... now I just don't bother with it apart from for route ideas...

In reply to Removed User:

The new range of guides avaliable in german or italian are very good, I have not found these in english

They are being gradually translated into English (3 volumes now available - Western Dolomites 1 & 2 and the Brenta) all on the link I provided above. I have AC guide (very user unfriendly) 100 Classics (as Mike says good for inspiration, but somewhat dated and a few errors) - the new Western Dolomites books in English are far superior (colour phototopos + diagrams, detailed pitch descriptions, clear approach and descent notes, info on state/amount of in situ gear & rock quality).