The conquest of Sas dla Crusc
At La Crusc you can almost literally touch the wonder, climbing the sheer walls that lead to the very summit of adventure – a vertical adventure that, once at the top, offers the sweet taste of triumph. This is a paradise for those who love the freedom of alpine climbing against a breathtakingly (dolo)mythical backdrop, with an incredible variety of routes and one certainty: the legendary beauty of the peaks that you climb!
Long a prized destination for expert climbers, the history of the mountains is intertwined with that of such great mountaineers as Reinhold and Günther Messner who, in 1968, made the first ascent of the “Pilastro di Mezzo” on the Sasso Santa Croce. Rated as a grade VI climb at the time – and long considered the most difficult route in the Dolomites – it was revisited ten years later by the Austrian Heinz Mariacher who, at the crux of the route, opened an easier variant, thus reclassifying the route that the Messner brothers had pioneered as a grade VII+. Over the years, many leading figures in the mountaineering world have helped open new routes on the Sas dla Crusc, which to date offers a total of more than 30 ascents, ranging from the classics to the more modern and challenging.
The Sas dla Crusc not only offers free climbing: it also welcomes less ambitious hikers and climbers, who can choose the protected path up to the summit. If you find that competition stimulates your own ambitions, then why not attempt the challenge of the 4 Peaks Alta Badia – enough to conquer any mountaineer’s heart!
