The Pillar of E.Montagna - Il Pilastro di Montagna

Pilastro E.Montagna - May 2016

"Nomen omen" say latins: "in the Name there is the Destiny"

Euro Montagna has been a strong Italian mountaineer that during the central part of the 20th century opened many routes in the Apuan Region. Together with his friends Angelo Nerli and Attilio Sabbadini he wrote the 'popular' book: "Alpi Apuane", better known as "The Bible".

Today the "Pilastro di Montagna" is not a very repeated route, and people think that Montagna (Mountain in Italian) is because you climb the pillar of a mountain..that is also true but..
 You may can ask why someone still want to climb on an old classic route in Apuans, where the approach is long and dangerous, where the rock is dirty, the pitons quit old and unreliable...where the difficulties are not so high. You begin to ask yourself whether is the sense, especially in a World dominated be competitiveness and Limit, where neither Poetry nor the Adventure find a place in modern climbing.
It is maybe because the South-Est pillar of the Mt.Pania Secca, in spite of everything, for those who have been in Apuans for years, browsing the yellow pages of the Bible, is exactly this: something still containing the flavour of Adventure.
 
You are a climber, thus you can't declare the irritability of the night before, the few hours of sleep entangled by images and thoughts. The alarm ring only once, we are up; the Moon is huge tonight: 3:40 am, let go.
During the reserved breakfast we do not speak of about the thousand of information asked, about the maps in out pockets. We are in front of the trail that will lead us to the pass.

After few doubts we finally get the pass: there the Pillar. It is a bit scaring, like scaring are the steep meadows, without trails, that we have to descend.
We are proceeding step by step; one of us lose the attention, then the foot: a really bad fall risked to compromise the day (e perhaps even something more).

Finally at the base of the pillar.
The first pitch has been smooth, even if in some report is graded as a VI- (UIAA scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)). The day is wonderful and we are in one of the most amazing scenario of the Apuans.

The climb proceed with other four quit challenging pitches of delicate rock (IV/V).
Then three really "Apuanic" pitches, that have led us to the real wall of the Mt. Pania. On out left side the "Gialunga" crest..that is really endless

Here the real climbing start again, with pitches of IV to V+. After the last aerial step we finally get the peak. 

We were not alone: the swallows are flying over our head. In the sunset light the chats are sober, quit...They have been twelve hours of mountaineering, flown in one second.

Finally, we found the answer to our initial question...