Angelo Dibona

Angelo Dibona (7 April 1879 – 21 April 1956) was an Italian mountaineer. He is remembered as one of the great pioneers of climbing in the Dolomites and is responsible for many first ascents throughout the Alps. The Aiguille Dibona in France and the Campanile Dibona in Italy are named after him.

Dibona was born in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1879. From 1905 he was a mountain guide and a ski instructor in the Cortina area, and he became known for pioneering routes in the Dolomites, making more than 70 first ascents and becoming the leading climber during the heyday of climbing in the Dolomites. In 1910 he made the second ascent of the Christomannosturm in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, 13 years after its first ascent. Dibona's route included a 600 m (2,000 ft) high rock face with fifth-degree passages. He made notable ascents of a number of peaks in other parts of the Alps in the early 1900s.

One of his most notable first ascents was of the Pain de Sucre du Soreiller, a 3,130 m (10,270 ft) granite peak in the French Massif des Écrins, which he climbed in 1913 with Guido Mayer (an Austrian client with whom he climbed many peaks in the Dolomites and other parts of the Alps). This mountain was renamed the Aiguille Dibona in his honor. Dibona developed a long-term and almost symbiotic friendship with Mayer and his brother.

In the 1920s he climbed in the English Lake District, making first ascents of gills in the Honister Pass area. In 1947 the Appalachian Mountain Club reported that Dibona was still doing "spectacular" rock climbs at the age of 65.

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