The Dolomites
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How it came to be
The Dolomites are a range in the north-eastern Italian Alps with 18 peaks above 3,000 metres. They preserve Mesozoic carbonate platform systems, with fossil records. They were once called the Monti Pallidi, the Pale Mountains, for the red-to-purple glow of the rock at sunset. Their present name comes from the French mineralogist Déodat de Dolomieu, who described the rock in 1791.
There is evidence that Franz von Wulfen, a Jesuit from Klagenfurt, climbed peaks here in the 1790s. In 1857 the Irishman John Ball made the first known ascent of Monte Pelmo. In 1887 Georg Winkler, aged 17, soloed the first ascent of the pinnacle of the Vajolet Towers, an event taken as the start of free climbing in the range.
In the First World War the front between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies ran through these mountains, and both sides made extensive use of mines. Many protected climbing routes, the vie ferrate, were built during the war. In 2009 nine component areas covering about 141,900 hectares were inscribed for their scenery and geology.
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