Up and over the Zufallspitze

The plan

Monte Cevedale is a beautiful peak in the Ortles-Cevedale group, with great views all around. To make it a bit more interesting, we opted not to take the normal route on the way up, but come from the east and traverse the Zufallspitze.

Early start

We started before dawn, at the Marteller hüttte, because the weather forecast predicted bad weather in the afternoon.

Sunrise

The sun rose shortly after we reached the glacier, the Fürkeleferner to be precise. The snowy dome on the right is the northern Zufallspitze, the more rocky one on the left the southern, or Südliche Zufallspitze. We're going to climb it over the east ridge, which is coming from the left in the picture.

Fürkeleferner

The glacier lies north of the ridge and it's actually possible to gain the ridge early, without having to go on the glacier. However, since you'll need glacier equipment anyway to traverse from the Zufallspitze to Cevedale, we walked on the glacier for a while and got on the ridge rather late - well west of the Fürkelescharte / La Forcola, where the route from Rifugio Larcher joins the ridge.

The ridge

Mostly, the ridge is wide and easy hiking over lots of small rocks and scree, with the occasional nice bit of scrambling thrown in.

Cevedale

Before noon we reached the southern Zufallspitze, and after a short break we continued to Cevedale itself.

Going down

After Cevedale, we went down the normal route to the Casati hut, and after a short break we continued further down into the Cedec valley, to Rifugio Pizzini-Frattola, where we would spend the next two nights. They served the best food I ever had in a mountain refuge!

Images

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