A note from the SP staff
Stefan Weber, the member we all used to know from his climbing pseudonym kletterwebbi, died on May 28th 2004 in southern France at the age of 37.

Stefan joined SP early on in 2002 and contributed a number of excellent pages and routes to this site. He was an accomplished climber excelling in difficult alpine and technical routes. The Dolomites, especially the area around Gröden / Val Gardena were special to him, as it was his old ancestral home.

kletterwebbi was always willing to share his knowledge and experience with other climbers, mainly here on SP, but also on other sites. He contributed his IT expertise as webmaster of his local section of the German Alpine Club, where he also engaged in leading trips for fellow members. Besides his climbing and mountaineering activities he was a musician, a composer of contemporary music. Stefan will be greatly missed by us all.

This page will be kept in honor of kletterwebbi, one of SP's most talented, knowledgeable members, and without a doubt, one of our greatest fellow mountaineers.

The picture was taken on the summit ridge of Lyskamm.

Overview

The Sass Pordoi is a big rock massiv with steep faces above the Pordoi-Joch at the Dolomites. The Sass Pordoi is part of the famous Sella group, which is well known for it's great possibilities for mountaineering. West of the Sass Pordoi the Val di Fassa is situated.

As part of the Sella-massiv, the mountain has only two faces: the S-face above the Pordoi-Joch (250 m hight) and the tremendous NW-face (800 m hight) above the road to the Sella-Joch. The mountain is famous for this NE-face, it is one of the most impressive landscapes of the whole Dolomites.

From the Pordoi-Joch the summit can be reached by a cable and also by foot on a well marked path (no climbing needed). This is also the common descent. Because it's so easy to reach the summit there are often crowds. An often done and beautiful tour is to use the cable to the summit of the Sass Pordoi and walk to the Piz Boe (3151 m), witch is the highest point of the Sella massive.

For climbers the two faces are offering some very good routes. The S-butress (aka "Maria-Kante") is done very often, it's a 9 pitch route at the 4th UIAA-grade. There are some other routes at the S-face, but none of them is done as often as the S-butress. At the NW-face there are a bunch of routes. The most famous of those are the "Fedele" (26 pitches, 4+, 8 hours) and the "Via Niagara" (about 28 pitches, 5+, 8-10 hours).

The rock quality at the Sass Pordoi is as usual at the Dolomites sometimes poor but sometimes even excellent.

Getting There

General starting areas are Bozen (west) or Cortina d'Ampezzo (east). Both towns can be reached easily by car.

To climb the Sass Pordoi most people will start at the Pordoi-Joch. This is reached by car directly from Canzei (west) or Arabba (east) at the roads to the Pordoi-Joch. Canazei can be reached from Bozen via the Karer-Pass. Arabba is situated at the road Falzarego-Pass to Pordoi-Joch. Approach the Falzarego-Pass from Cortina d'Ampezzo.

At the Pordoi-Joch a cable ("Funivia del Sass Pordoi") brings many people to the top of the Sass Pordoi. There is also a big (!) parking
area at the Pordoi-Joch.

For the NW-face start at Pian Schiaveneis (1877 m) at the road Canazei - Sella-Joch.

Red Tape

No red tape. Fee for the cable, this can be avoided if you hike up ...

When To Climb

Summer

Camping

There are only a few good camping places for climbers at the Dolomites. Three at Cortina d'Ampezzo, one at Corvara, one at Canazei (south of Passo Pordoi). The last one should be the best choice for climbing at the Sass Pordoi. Those campgrounds are very (!) expensive and very crowded.

Beside the campgrounds there are lots of hotels at the whole region.

Mountain Conditions

Good place with lot of informations are this Homepage of the Fassa-valley.

And there is another Homepage with lots of informations to the Fassa-valley.

The weather forecast for the region can be seen here: Weatherforcast Trentino.

Routes

There are many routes at the Sass Pordoi, here some of them:

Regular route: a harmless hike on a well marked path from the Pordoi-Joch to the summit (2 hours).
S-butress (aka "Maria-Kante"): 300m, 4+, 9 pitches, 3-4 hours (G.B.Piaz and V.Dezulian, 1932)
S-face: 300m, 4+, 10 pitches, 3-4 hours (L. Scheibler, B. Seligmann, G.B.Piaz, 1930), uncommon
S-edge of the S-butress: a variant of the S-butress, 6, 10 pitches, 5-6 hours (G.B. Piaz, S. Del Torso, R. Springorum, F. Piaz, 1933), this routes joins the S-butress after 6 pitches.
NW-face: ("Fedele"), 800 m, 4+, 26 pitches, 8 hours (F. Bernard, G. Masè Dari, 1929)
NW-face: ("Via Niagara"), 800 m, 5+, 28 pitches, 8-10 hours

Remember that the use of bolts isn't common at many of the classic routes of the dolomites. The stances most times are not bolted too ! So bring a medium rack and some slings and even (especially on the harder routes)
some pitons.

The rating of the climbs of the dolomites are often quite hard.

Guide Book and Map

Sella & Langkofel Extrem, Richard Gödike, Bergverlag Rudolph Rother, ISBN 3-7633-1315-X

Dolomiten Genußklettereien III-VI, Anette Köhler & Norbert Mehmel, Bergverlag Rudolph Rother, ISBN 3-7633-3001-1

What's new

2004-05-10: added Latitude/Longitude (Thanks to Gangolf Haub for this information)

Images



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