The History of Mountaineering in the Dolomites — Stories That Will Leave You Breathless
There is a moment, just before dawn, when the Dolomites turn a shade of pink that has no name in any language. The Italians call it enrosadira — the alpenglow — and according to ancient Ladin legend, it happens because a king once wove a cloak from moonbeams for his bride, and the mountains still glow with that impossible light. For thousands of years, the people who lived in the valleys below looked up at these walls of pale rock and saw gods, spirits, and things that did not belong to the human world.
Then, one summer in 1857, a young Irishman decided to climb one.
The Rock That Has a Name — and a Story
In 1789, a French geologist named Déodat de Dolomieu was travelling through the southern Alps when he noticed something strange about the rock. When he dropped acid on ordinary limestone, it fizzed immediately. This rock did not. It sat there, silent and indifferent, as if it had nothing to prove.
Dolomieu collected samples, brought them back to Paris, and spent months analysing them. What he discovered was a mineral never formally described — a calcium magnesium carbonate. It was left to other scientists to name it after him: dolomite. The mountains built almost entirely from this extraordinary material became the Dolomites.
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, this entire region was a shallow tropical sea — warm, clear, teeming with coral reefs somewhere near the equator. What you see today when you look at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo is not just a mountain — it is a fossilised coral reef, lifted three thousand metres into the sky by forces so vast they make human history seem like a footnote.
Déodat de Dolomieu died in 1801, just a few years after his discovery, never knowing that his name would one day be given to one of the most beautiful places on earth.
The Man Who Started It All
John Ball was not a typical adventurer. He was a botanist, a politician, and the first president of the Alpine Club in London. On September 26, 1857, he reached the summit of Monte Pelmo — the first recorded ascent of a major Dolomite peak. He wrote in his journal that he felt he was standing in "the ruins of a world that had existed before time itself."
The Shepherd Who Became a Legend
In 1869, a shepherd from Cortina named Michele Bettega guided his first climbing party to the summit of the Marmolada. He had simply spent his entire life moving across these mountains with goats, and he understood the rock the way a musician understands a piece of music — intuitively, completely, from the inside.
A London barrister named Francis Fox Tuckett wrote that Bettega moved across vertical rock faces "with the casual confidence of a man walking down Piccadilly." Bettega went on to guide hundreds of ascents, and his descendants still live in Cortina today.
The Wall That Couldn't Be Climbed
In 1933, a young climber from Trieste named Emilio Comici announced he would climb the north face of the Cima Grande "by the line a drop of water would take falling from the summit." Born into a working-class family, he had no access to expensive equipment or exclusive clubs. He taught himself to climb on the limestone crags above Trieste. He could rest on a vertical wall using just two fingers.
On August 14, 1933, Comici and the brothers Dimai reached the summit via the north face — a route so difficult it would not be repeated for years. He died in 1940 during a training climb near Selva di Val Gardena. He was 36 years old. To this day, climbers leave flowers at his memorial.
War on the Mountains
Between 1915 and 1918, the Dolomites became a battlefield. Austrian troops built the Città di Ghiaccio — an entire underground village with dormitories, a kitchen, a chapel, and even a theatre — excavated from the Marmolada glacier. At its peak it housed over 1,000 soldiers. As the glacier retreats today due to climate change, it is slowly giving up its secrets — weapons, uniforms, personal letters, and the remains of soldiers are still being discovered every summer.
Reinhold Messner and the Modern Era
Born in 1944 in Val di Funes, Messner became the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders and the first to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. He always said the Dolomites were where he learned everything that mattered.
"The Dolomites taught me that the mountain is not your enemy. The mountain is your teacher. And like all great teachers, it is completely indifferent to whether you pass or fail."
Today, Messner operates a network of six extraordinary museums across the Dolomites — the Messner Mountain Museum — each housed in a different castle or fortress.
What the Mountains Still Have to Teach Us
The history of mountaineering in the Dolomites is not a story about conquest. It is a story about encounter — between human beings and a landscape so extreme, so beautiful, and so indifferent that it forces you to discover who you really are.
At Luxury Dolomites, our private guides can take you to the sites of historic first ascents, the remains of World War I fortifications, and the hidden corners of the Dolomites that most visitors never see. Write to us at info@luxurydolomites.com to start planning your extraordinary journey.