Katarina and I wanted to try a slightly longer trad route. We chose Cesare Levis on the Il Dain wall, in the Pian Dela Paia area, since it seemed to have about the same level of difficulty as Via Flavia and was 8 pitches (300m, UIAA grade V+ with a grade VI crux). After a good night's sleep we got to the wall at 8.30 am. The estimated 45 minutes approach turned into 1.5 hours of struggling through a dense forest with no path to follow. The first two pitches were easy climbing on loose rock but as I got up the first ramp it was difficult to find the right way and this slowed us down. The second pitch led us out on a wide ledge with bolts for the belay. Some rain added to the uncertainty. The third pitch started by downclimbing and traversing before entering the dieder that we would climb for the next 4 pitches. When I got to the belay point after the 3rd pitch I knew we were on the right route at least, but it had taken us too much time to get there and we had the toughest pitches ahead of us. The 4th pitch is the crux of the route and involves a passage to the left of an overhanging section. Traversing out of the dieder was easy but getting up on the roof and back into the dieder via a hand traverse was tough. Here we lost more time since I had to make an extra belay point to rest and to stay close as Katarina followed up the roof passage. It was now 3 pm and we had five more pitches to go. We discussed a retreat but we (I) argued we would be much faster being past the crux and knowing we were on the right route. I did not consider that Katarina would have to climb on the limit of her capacity. The remaining dieder pitches were tough too and Katarina was sometimes beyond what she had climbed before, but with some elegant French aiding she managed to climb quickly. The second last pitch was easy face climbing and the last pitch was scrambling on loose rock into the forest on top of the wall. At 6.45 pm we topped out. That night we ate Italian pizza at a restaurant close to our quarters.
