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.
Before dawn
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.
The Zufallspitzen
Fürkeleferner
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.  |
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Cevedale
Before noon we reached the southern Zufallspitze, and after a short break we continued to Cevedale itself.  Cevedale from the southern Zufallspitze |  View from Cevedale |  The weather is moving in from the south |
Going down
 Ice face NE of Cevedale |  Bad weather approaching |  Cedec valley |
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!
