The Alps are always something that will attract me & my climbing friends, as Nikola in this case story. There, in the Alps, we are always looking for something exciting & challenging for us to climb and make an adventure out of it. It is a pure field for adventure making. For the year 2023, our plan was to climb Piz Bernina (4060m), Matterhorn (4478m) & potentially Ortler (3905m), located in Italy.

Sleeping at the highest summit of Macedonia (Big Korab) with Nikola in the winter of 2022, we discussed the natural way of climbing mountains and its schedule. Like many times before, we consider that it’s always proper to climb mountains very graduate, scale by scale, in terms of difficulty. For example, We knew that it’s good to climb the ridge of Studlgrat at the summit of Grossglockner (3798) in Austria and grab the experience needed to move on ridges with an alpine environment before going to Matterhorn, Piz Bernina or other more serious climbs out there. Through the years, we both had the opportunity to climb Studlgrat, especially Nikola, who did a winter climb on this route up to the summit. “look at the stars”, I said to Nikola after we set our break and entered our sleeping bags at the summit of Big Korab. Although it was very cold, Nikola confirmed what I said a couple of minutes ago, realising that, actually, this night was incredibly bright and fresh like never before. It was 31 December, 5 hours before the new year. There was no better time to make our plans regarding mountaineering towards the upcoming year.

The climbing season in the Alps starts in late May and continues until early September. Mountaineers from the entire World are coming to this — if you zoom out — very small and tiny mountain space. The goal is more or less the same: to make a story and experience moments. “Life is all about making stories”, Nikola said to me as we passed the border of Serbia & Croatia in an incredibly short time. Piz Bernina and its Biancograt Ridge will be a story to remember. We decided to climb Piz Bernina (4060m) via Biancograt as our first climb in the Alps for this 2023 year.

Piz Bernina is the most eastern 4000er in the Alps, which means it was natural for us to climb this mountain first, as we are coming from the Balkans. The summit is probably the most beautiful country in Europe, Switzerland. The starting point of Piz Bernina is at Pontresina, a small Siwss village full of nature & tourists asking themself if these surroundings are real.

After a long 24-hour drive from Skopje, we finally arrived, not very fresh, but happy that we took the step of writing and experiencing our next story. “Nikola, someone had told me there is free parking somewhere here, 20 minutes away from Pontresina. It's part of a ski resort, and in summer, it’s free.” We found the parking, and from there, we grabbed the train and went to Pontresina, leaving the car there at the parking. We haven’t eaten anything since we left Skopje. Once the train started its long journey of 20 minutes, we ate some food that we had taken from our car. I cannot remember who said that one. A 3-hour hike starting from Pontresina with complete battlefield equipment is needed to arrive at the first checkpoint of the climb for Biancograt Ridge, which is Tschierva mountain hut.

We walked nine kilometres on a flat terrain, witnessing some of the most beautiful nature I have seen. For the last two kilometres, we start on the real hike by discussing the ultimate remoteness of these huts and the silence around them, although some avalanches in the distance can hurt the silence a bit.” We arrived very tired in the hut, looking forward to the next day, which was the climb of Piz Bernina via Biancograt and going down to the Marco e Rossa hut in Italy. “I will take a beer. You want wanted, right? Anyway, no matter what you choose, you will pay the same. ”Yes, the beer & water price was the same,” said Nikola.

Early start, 04 AM. Right after we left the hut, we started to climb some easy rocks. Finding the route was difficult in the dark, although we had the GPS track. We climbed easy rocks until we spotted the glacier and the sunrise. After the glacier, we start climbing more steep rock faces until the actual start of Biancograt Ridge, where we rope up together. “Interesting climb in front of us”, I thought, but I didn’t share that with Nikola. I thought we had made a mistake here because we roped up too early, but it seems we made the right decision.

The climbing here was very good, and we moved fast, dancing with the rocks, without putting any gear to secure ourselves. “Stop there, let me take a shoot with the camera. It looks nice!“ The ambient was that good. Finally, more snow arrived. We put on our crampons. Here, we found very steep climbing on black snow dangerous because the crampons didn't enter the snow so easily. This section was very long, and this path led us to a rock tower that you need to climb to proceed and stay on the ridge. I had looked at some pictures of this rock years ago.

Piz Bernina was on my mind for a long time. Our subconscious is working that way. Right on time, from somewhere, the information that we need to pass below and traverse this rock tower has arrived in my mind. I can easily say that this traverse below the rock tower, for me & Nikola, was maybe the biggest mistake and riskiest thing we have done so far. It was very hard and steep snow, with no possibility to put any gear on the traverse and secure each other. I was moving very slowly as Nikola followed me, both aware that falling here would be the end. This traverse took almost 1 hour, but we also had uncommon feelings and energy. It was, at least for me, a true horror.

As we arrived on the ridge again, we saw other climbers descending from the rock tower. One Polish mountain guide told us, “Guys, I know the risk that you just took, please, be careful and analyze better next time”. Actually, you need to traverse the rock tower when there is snow, but in this case, the snow was ice, a very bad one. We continue our climb. Finally, something interesting came to us after this experience with the traverse. We faced steep, hard and frozen snow, again. After some time, we climbed Piz Bianco, which is a peak before the main summit of Piz Bernina. Leaving Piz Bianco, we did several abseils and downclimb before taking the final climb towards Piz Bernina. After 7.5 hours of climbing, we are at the summit of Bernina with two great guys from Bergamo. Taking photos, sharing thoughts, and analysing where we need to descend were part of the 30-minute pause at the summit.

“Hey guys, what do you think about using the same rope for abseils on the way down?” asks one of the guys from Bergamo. That practice will save more time, and we agree on that as we start our descent to the Marco e Rossa mountain hut together. Many loose rocks and exposed terrain were before us, but we moved very well. Step by step, abseil by abseil, we came to a spot where Nikola told me the following: So far, when we are outside, climbing or running, we are laughing together. “Miki, when you are tired, you are very nervous”. Yes, I was nervous after 15 hours in the mountain, waiting for the guys from Bergamo to downclimb and take my turn. Finally, we put off our crampons in front of the door of Marco e Rossa mountain hut.

The whole climbing of Piz Bernina doesn't end at the Marco e Rossa Mountain Hut in Italy! The next day is long again. The hut is at 3,600 meters of altitude, and our car is 1,000 meters. We have another glacier to descend and a lot of rocks to downclimb. The navigation and finding the route down was hard to do as well. Nothing is marked out there, and you can easily lose your path, as we did. After downclimbing some rocky sections, we came to a very weird spot because we did not know where to continue our descent.

We missed the turning point. We realised very soon that we were not on the right route, and we got back on the route soon after. We climbed down a really big mess of giant rocks towards one glacier river, which was very hard to cross. “It's risky for me to jump here, Miki. I will take off my shoes and go through it.” Nikola told me. We proceeded with our descent, and from this point, after the river, we could see the end. At the river, I took a leap of faith. “I needed to record your jump above the river, Miki. It was so cool.” We laugh together again, very tired and hungry. This descent took us almost 8 hours. We came to the car, and we were thinking of where we needed to go next.