Torrione Brassamonti and the crags of the Alben

Park at the Colle di Zambla and take the dirt road towards the Alben, which is a cross-country ski track in winter. Go past the barrier, carry on to a wide clearing and just beyond it, on the left, take trail 501, steep at first and then gentler, following the signs for the Alben (Sass Balòss). Gulliver describes the same approach: about a kilometre of road, then the dirt track and after about 300 metres, on the left, the 501 signs.

At the Col dei Brassamonti (1,755 m) the outline of the tower appears. Follow the path another five minutes and take the detour left to the Baita Nembrini, at 1,730 metres, built right against the east face (Gulliver, Sass Balòss, CAI Bergamo). The approach takes about an hour and a half from the pass, with 460-470 metres of ascent according to Sass Balòss and about 500 according to Gulliver. On OpenStreetMap's municipal boundaries the tower and the hut lie in the municipality of Oneta, a few hundred metres from those of Oltre il Colle and Cornalba.

There are two faces: the east, with the hut at its foot and most of the classic lines, and the north. The via dei Cioch, on the gully side, faces south-east. Lo Scarpone places the tower at around 2,000 metres, Sass Balòss gives the top at about 1,800: either way it is a crag at altitude, which both the CAI magazine and Sass Balòss recommend for hot summer and autumn days.

There is no water on site (Sass Balòss): bring everything from the Colle di Zambla, where there is a fountain. The approach path is obvious and well marked; you come down from the routes by abseil.

Climbook counts 26 entries on the east face and 19 on the north, because each pitch of the longer routes is listed separately. Grouped together they make 15 lines on the east face, from the 3a of the last pitch of the via dei Cioch to the 7a+ of Karakorum, and 6 on the north face, where the Bombata tm reaches 7b on its second pitch. The short routes and single pitches, as Lo Scarpone writes, lend themselves to link-ups.

Grades do not always match between sources: for the first pitch of the Bonatti, Climbook and Sass Balòss give 6b, Gulliver 6b+, and the two reports also give the alternative of 5c with aid moves (A0). Before setting off it is worth comparing at least two descriptions.

On 5 November 1950 Walter Bonatti and Camillo Barzaghi opened a three-pitch route on the east face in three hours of climbing, graded IV and V at the time and climbed partly on aid in its first section (Lo Scarpone). Today the route has 12 bolts and several original pegs on the 30-metre first pitch, 9 bolts on the second and an easier final pitch to the top (Sass Balòss, Gulliver).

Bonatti was attached to the Alben from childhood, when he spent his holidays with his uncles in Val Seriana: in his book «In terre lontane» he recalls imagining that summit as the roof of the world. Many Bergamo climbers trained on these faces, Lo Scarpone notes, and the Baita Nembrini at their foot bears the name of Carlo Nembrini, an expedition leader who died in the Bolivian Andes in 1973 (VisitBrembo, Wikipedia).

In 2011 the Fancy Mountain association, chaired by Marco Astori, and mountain guide Mattia Cavagna, with the help of the Bergamo mountain guides, re-bolted about twenty pitches on the Torrione and the point beside it, equipped four pitches on the Bottiglione with a cable for crossing it and coming down, and fitted out the main boulder of the Corni dell'acqua with a small map of the other rocks. The Province of Bergamo covered 80 per cent of this work with 15,000 euros, out of 90,000 planned for the whole programme (L'Eco di Bergamo, 7 October 2011).

On the classic routes, such as the Bonatti, the Perolari and the Bianchetti, the old pegs were left beside the new anchors (Sass Balòss). Fifteen years have passed since the work: check belays and abseil rings before trusting them.

The Bottiglione is a monolith not far away on the slopes of the Alben: Climbook lists four routes on its south-south-west face, between 5a and 6a, and two on the north face, at 6a and 3c. The Coregn de l'Acqua is the group of large erratic boulders near the Conca dell'Alben, frequented mostly by boulderers, where the main boulder was equipped in 2011; Climbook records six lines there, from the 3a of the via scuola to the 7a+ of the via delle tre Marie.

The big Corna Bianca crag, on the south side of the Alben above Cornalba, is a different place: more than a hundred routes from grade 5 to 9a+ (Wikipedia), with a different approach, from the Cornalba side.

On the north side of the Cima della Croce, the second summit of the Alben group, climbs the Maurizio via ferrata, dedicated to Oltre il Colle mountaineer Pierangelo Maurizio, who died on Everest in 2007, and opened in May 2013 (ferrate365). The municipality of Oltre il Colle lists it among its routes and refers to the same description.

It starts from the car park of the Conca dell'Alben ski lifts, reached from Oltre il Colle; the start of the protected route is 20 minutes away. Ferrate365 grades it difficult: 2 hours of via ferrata, 400 metres of protected ascent, 600 for the whole round, 3.8 kilometres, about 4 hours in all and a high point of 1,900 metres. VieFerrate.it judges it moderately difficult with some difficult passages because of steepness and exposure. The first part is a protected path on loose ground, then come two vertical walls; early in the season, until June, an unprotected gully can be full of snow and call for crampons and a rope. The descent returns via the Passo della Forca and trail 501.

If you have no gear, Edo Sport in Zambla Alta rents via ferrata kits as part of its summer hire.