In the wedding frenzy of July (we attended three!), we squeezed in one climbing weekend. It was a return to the Dolomites - a place in which we’ve left many sentiments. In addition to drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of gelati and pasta, we went to Tre Cime and climbed Comici-Dimai route on Cima Grande.

It was a weekend warrior style trip, i.e. take one day off and have three days. After a day of work on Friday, we flew to Venice, rented a car and drove somewhere close to Misurina. Slept in a car, had proper Italian style breakfast at some pretty cafe, bought food and drove up towards Rifugio Auronzo. Walked to the base of the climb, looked around, admired the steepness and height of the climb for a while and came back to the rifugio to eat, sleep and rest for tomorrow.

Smart enough, we started very early. It was still dark, probably 5am or similar when we started. We took leads in blocks. The first half is for me and the second for Martynas. All I remember now is that the climbing is superb quality, the rock is good and almost no pro is needed as there are loads of pitons left. We had some cams and used a couple of them though. The upper part was a bit wet. Lucky me, I was just seconding that :P

We summited at roughly 5pm. Without much summit partying, we started the descent. Went/crawled around the ringband, rappeled/downclimbed/walked down. Were lost a bit but saw some people and went back on track. With all this, when we were down on the ground it was already dark. I was tired as a dog. Lied on some boulder for a while, then we headed back to the car.

As the rifugio was closed for the day already, we slept in the car. I almost felt asleep with my helmet on. Martynas ate dinner and asked me to come look at the stars but I couldn’t be bothered. I was dreaming my fifth dream already at that time :)

Next day we packed our stuff and headed back to our everyday lives. Almost missed our flight because of the traffic on the way to Venice but in the end we made it. However, all the rush cost me my beautiful pink helmet. I left it in the rental car.