The King of Cortina: Angelo Dibona's 1913 Soreiller Granite Masterpiece

The Needle of Soreiller

In the early summer of 1913, thirty-four-year-old Cortina d’Ampezzo mountain guide Angelo Dibona crossed the border from the Austro-Hungarian Dolomites into the rugged Dauphiné Alps of southeastern France. Accompanying his longtime British clients Guido and Max Mayer and fellow guide Angelo Dimai, Dibona had built a reputation as the finest rock guide of his era, famed for stepping onto blank, vertical walls with tranquil serenity.

Towering above the desolate granite basin of the Soreiller rose an extraordinary rock monument: the Pain de Sucre (Sugar Loaf). Rising like a needle of pale granite into the sky, its sheer vertical slabs and razor-sharp arêtes had turned back local Chamonix and Dauphiné guides who insisted the spire could only be climbed using iron scaling ladders. Dibona took one look at the soaring obelisk and declared that clean boots and balance were all that was required.

Ballet on Granite Crystals

Roping up on the morning of June 27, 1913, Dibona led his companions onto the steep North Ridge. Where others saw a blank, holdless precipice, Dibona’s experienced eyes found tiny feldspar crystals and subtle ripples in the granite. Moving with extraordinary poise, placing few pitons and protecting his party through natural rope-threads and rock horns, he unraveled the technical crux with effortless grace.

By early afternoon, Angelo Dibona and the Mayer brothers stood crowded together on the tiny summit boulder of the Pain de Sucre (3,130 m), an aerie so small that only two climbers could stand upright simultaneously. Stunned by the pure elegance of the Italian guide’s achievement, the French Alpine Club performed an act of supreme admiration: they officially stripped the mountain of its old name and rechristened it the Aiguille Dibona. It stands to this day as an eternal monument to the King of Cortina Guides.

Primary Sources: Angelo Dibona: Alpinista e guida emerita (Italo Zandonella Callegher); The Alpine Journal (Vol. XXVIII, 1914); CAF Historical Archives. All historical records verified.