The Story

The alpinistic story of the Rosengarten and its huts begins in 1874 with the first ascent of the prestigious peak of the namesake mountain accomplished by the English from the Fassa valley; in 1878 the Sudtiroler Johann Santner found out a new entrance called ”Gartl” along the narrow gorge where today you find the via ferrata with the same name.
In the summer of 1900 the department called Rheinland of the Deutscher und Österreichischer Alpenverein built on the West side, just below the rocks, the Kölnerhütte and on the East side the Vajolet Hut.
In 1910 they began to equip the gorge of the Santner pass with iron ropes and rungs to facilitate the access at the Vajolet basin, where Marino Pederiva, from the Fassa valley, built in 1929 a wood hut. The well known mountain guide from Pera di Fassa, Tita Piaz, bought this first shelter and built the Gartlhütte or Re Alberto Hut paying a tribute to the king of Belgium who used to climb in the Dolomites with him, the “devil of the Dolomites”.
The hut was then extended a couple of times to form the present shape.

 

The “devil of the Dolomites

Tita Piaz was born in Pera di Fassa the 13th October 1879 in a little house situated right at the entrance of the Vajolet valley. Throughout his youth, Piaz saw all the major inteprid personalities of the dolomitic alpinism, make giant steps. Between them we should mention Georg Winkler whom, in 1887, climbed the “smallest” of the Vajolet Towers.
Tha Fassa alpinism reached its higher levels with alpine guides such as Luigi Bernard, Luigi Rizzi and again with Tita Piaz. He also climbed the Winkler tower that until that moment, was reserved to the most famous guides. All his mountain climbing life was around this tower and another enterprise that he did when he was only twenty years old: he climbed alone the North-East crack of the Emma peak. Preuss, about this, said that “it was a unique enterprise in its genre related to the present times” and together with Dulfer, they were so enthusiastic that they wanted to repeate it twice each!
Piaz opened almost fifty new climbing ways. At the beginning of his mountain climbing life, in 1899, he climbed 8 peaks in seven hours including two new ones; he started the East side of the Rosengarten and finished with the Delago tower; his tattered shoes were then exposed in a room of the Vajolet Hut, wishing, perhaps, to see a future alpine museum.

The course of events that really anticipated the modern concepts of alpinism happened when he climbed the Campanil Basso in the morning and the Winkler tower in the afternoon with a quick transfer by motorbike.
By Tita Piaz are also “the most difficult climbing of the Alps” at the Campanil Toro in 1906, “the most celebrated climbing” at the West tower of the Totenkirchl in 1908, “the most dangerous climbing” on the North-West edge of the Schenon in 1926. From all these comes his nickname “the devil of the Dolomites”!
In 1932, together with Virginio Dezulian, opened the “Via Maria” on the South pillar of the Sass Pordoi, a fourth degree climbing way still attended by lots of mounteneers from all over the world today.
Tita Piaz enterprises are an example of a modern and aware alpinism which stems from the owner of the mountains, in his own land, where he finds all his loves and passions.
After a whole life spent climbing the most difficult and dangerous mountains, also with “moonlight” ascents, Tita Piaz died in 1948 in a bike accident few metres away from his own house.

The king Laurin legend

One of the most fascinating legends of the Dolomites explains why these mountains become coloured in pink and orange during the sunset.
According to this legend, on the Rosengarten, where today you can see until late spring a stain of snow in a sort of basin, you could find Laurin’s garden of roses.
This is why the mountain is called Rosengarten in German, which means “garden of roses”.
Laurin was the king of a population of dwarves who used to dig in the centre of the mountain searching for cristals, gold and silver and he owned two magical weapons: a belt that could give him the strengh of twelve man and a mantle that could turn him invisible.
One day the king of Adige decided to marry off his beautiful daughter Similde and for this reason envited the nobility of the neighborhood to a spring excursion. Everyone except king Laurin who decided to particepate anyway, but as an invisible guest.
When he first saw Similde on the field of the knights tournament, he immediately fell in love with her; he took her on the back of his horse and fled at full speed. The knights immediately threw themselves into the chase to bring Similde back. Before long cornering King Laurin and Similde infront of the Garden of Roses. Laurin put on his magic belt and began to fight.
When he realised that he was going to succumb anyway, he wore his mantle and started to jump everywhere in the garden, convinced that nobody could see him. But the knights could see him by looking at his steps on the roses. They got him, they cut his magic belt and imprisoned him.
Laurin then, really angry, turned himself towards the Rosengarten, and convinced that it had betrayed him, uttered a curse: neither during the day nor the night, any human eye could admire it anymore. But Laurin forgot to say the sunset and sunrise. From that day it happens that either at the sunrise or the sunset the garden becomes bathed with beautiful colors.