In 1862, the Viennese jurist and the guides Kuenz from Martell and Delpero from Vermiglio ascended the 3043 m Passo di Cercen to the West of Presanella. They attempted the western summit (Cima di Vermiglio, 3458 m), then considered the highest by the people from Vermiglio, but failed to reach the summit, partly because Delpero did not have glacier experience. The first well-recorded ascent was two years later by François Devouassoud accompanied by Delpero and guiding the English gentlemen R. Melville Beachcroft, James Douglas Walker, and Douglas William Freshfield. Like Ruthner, the party approached Presanella from Vermiglio from the North to the Passo di Cercen and then crossed to the 3375 m pass now known as Sella di Freshfield and via the upper part of the Vedretta di Nardis over the west slope to the summit. Only three weeks later, on 17 September 1864, the Austrian explorer Julius Payer and his guide Girolamo Botteri stood on the summit, finding there to their surprise and disappointment a cairn built by Freshfield's party. Payer, Botteri and a second guide (either one Bertoldi or Giovanni Caturani, who gave up before the summit) had approached the mountain from the opposite side, starting in the Rocchetta valley, and climbing the Southeast ridge in a storm.