Comici Route VII- (a. k. a.: North Face Classic Route, Comici-Dimai)

Cima Grande di Lavaredo 2999 m, north face

FA: Emilio Comici, Angelo and Giuseppe Dimai, August 1933 (V+A1)
FFA: Jean Claude Droyer, 1978 (maybe earlier)

Gear:
Take a full set of wires, friends, slings, kevlar threads and plenty of quickdraws

Tips:
- The route is so popular, that usually you have to climb the first pitch in the dark to beat the crowd
- If the route is dry the difficulties are concentrated into seven medium length pitches
- Usually the route is finished at the Ring Band, as the pitch above is loose and nasty. You can traverse leftwards along     the ledge and reach the gully that separates the Cima Grande from the Cima Piccola.

History:
Emilio Comici and the Dimai brothers climbed the route using aid techniques – stirrups, swings, hanging bivouacs. The team used approximately seventy-five pegs in the first 750 feet of the climb, which overhang the bottom by sixty feet (today’s climbers make use of twice that number). It was entirely new universe “beyond the vertical”, as French climber Georges Livanos later put it so well.
The first recorded free ascent is attributed to Jean Claude Droyer in 1978 but there are rumours it could have been done before this date.