Word: cima
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Dark and forbidding, the rocky pinnacle rises 9,750 ft. out of the Italian Dolomites, and the last 1,800 ft. of its north wall is as sheer and smooth as a Manhattan skyscraper. An Italian team first scaled Cima Grande di Lavaredo's north wall in 1933. and the rock is stitched with hundreds of pitons, or spikes, left behind by alpinists following the winding "staircase" trail to the summit. But not until this month did anyone tackle Cima Grande's north wall by the "elevator route"-straight up. Even in summer, that route was so perilous...
Last week, on the 17th day of their ascent, the three men stumbled up a sloping snow field, into blinding sunlight, and fell tearfully into the arms of Italian guides who had gone up Cima Grande's easy south wall to meet them at the summit. "We want to sleep," mumbled Siegert. "It was rough...