Although Montenegro is Mediterrannean country, its mountains provide almost every aspect of the alpine climbing. Playing with the frozen waterfalls became the part of local scene some fifteen years ago. The most popular, regularly formed ice climbs are located in Komarnica valley and surroundings of village Boan (near the town of Šavnik), as well as in Morača and Tara canyons. Unfortunately, they last very shortly due to the closeness of seaside and sudden intrusions of the warm air, but when everything coincided, some of these climbs would have had a significant place even within the most prestigious ice climbing areas anywhere.
When December of 2016. and January of 2017. brought the prolonged period of stabile and freezing-cold weather, many of the classic climbs formed and some of the long expected first ascents and repeats have taken place. A mixed team from Podgorica and Belgrade – Nikola Đurić, Dušan Branković, Dušan Starinac, Danilo Pot and Ivan Laković – climbed the two biggest frozen waterfalls in Montenegro on Saturday, January 28th.
Both waterfalls are located near the Dobrilovina village in Tara canyon, near by the road towards the Zabojsko lake. Nikola and Ivan made a first ascent of Strast (Passion) WI 5+, 150m in the left, while the two Dušans and Danilo repeated the Mali zec (Little rabbit), WI 4, 150m in the right waterfall (first ascent made only three weeks before by Ivan Laković and Srđan Lečić).
Weather conditions were almost ideal, with temperatures ranging -12/-5⁰C. Curently, Strast is the most difficult ice climb in the country, and it’s been climbed in four pitches (P1:WI4, 50m; P2:WI5, 50m; P3:WI5,30m; P4:WI5+,20m).
The second ascent was after only two days, by the fellow climbers Mićan Cerović and Đorđije Vujičić climbed the route and confirmed the grades. Weather conditions were almost ideal, with temperatures ranging -12/-5⁰C.
Climbers: Nikola Đurić, Dušan Branković, Dušan Starinac, Danilo Pot, Ivan Laković
Video: Saša Vujanović, Bojan Gnjidić, Ilija Perić
Text: Ivan Laković
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