Past Featured Articles

"It was as difficult as never before".

Twelve days of bad weather and six sunny days. Steep (60-65 degrees) snow-ice slope, then ridge sharp as a knife, from the height of 6500 m – the tower itself: steep ice-covered, snow-covered rocks vertical and overhanging sections, with loose snow on vertical rocks.

The summit is a wind-packed snowdrift without any traces of visits by humans.

The ethic of clean climbing is the lasting contribution of the Yosemite big-wall climbers to the world of mountaineering. In 1972 an article was published in the Chouinard Equipment catalog (a manufacturer of climbing gear later to become Black Diamond Equipment), written by Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost, that laid out the theory and method of “clean” climbing. Its methodological core was the rejection of pitons in favor of a series of nuts, hexes, and, later, caming devices.

La Grivola (m 3969) is a pyramidal shape summit situated in the mid Aosta Valley at the end of Gran Paradiso massif.

After the first ascent on 1859 this mountain begun a prestigious aim among the classical climbers of XIX century as a training for most difficult ascents on Mont Blanc, Matterhorn and so on. The great view on the valley and the solitary environment unfortunately wasn’t rewarded from a good quality of rock, except perhaps for the East-Nord-East ridge, known as “Arête des Clochettes”. The attempt performed in 1928 by Valsavarenche’s mountaineering guides to equip the South-West face with fixed ropes in order to enhance a possible alternative standard way was completely unsuccessful because climbers preferred the most comfortable route (nevertheless a bit more dangerous), discovered in 1861 by Abbé Chamonin, priest of Cogne.

However the real esthetical route of Grivola was until 1950, the icy North ridge, named “la scimitarra” (“the scimitar”) for its shape. Nowadays less followed cause the climate changes which has quite completely erased the snow leaving large sections of crumbling rock, this route will be the protagonist of a story a bit legendary, quite similar to some actual alpine and Himalayan enterprises: “a rope cutted by an avalanche”.

Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco as it is known by Italians. Commonly known as the Death Mountain or the White Killer. The Mont Blanc kills so many people every year that it's difficult to keep track of its numbers, it is quite difficult to find a site online that determine "this is the total number of deaths up to date." Not easy to find and I think there isn’t one. This is a quick analysis of the mountain and its frightening numbers that made the Swiss Alpine Club rethink about safety on the roof of the Alps this year.

The accident this year put everything back on the table. The deadly avalanche that killed nine experienced climbers made everyone in Europe recall, and made things more than clear that when it comes to avalanche risk, doesn’t matter the experience of the climber, doesn’t matter how well-made is a protection, it will be dragged down the mountain, the protection, the climber and everything that stands on its way. His lifeless body will be torn apart and it will be buried under several feet of snow. Fact. We just have to remember the great names of world mountaineering that found their demise with a big avalanche. Otherwise, they would continue their brilliant achievements, bold routes and aggressive approaches up in icy alpine slopes, north american, canadian, Hilamaia and the andes.

The old saying goes: "Nobody knows your body better than yourself." Since January this year I noticed several changes in my body that made me uncomfortable, and because of that I decided to investigate, and then I’ll use another old saying to illustrate this different story: "He who seeks, finds". Here is the result...

It all started in january this year with out of control pimples, when I went off the last job I loved, and was the first which actually I got fired in my entire life. Pure politics. Canker sores worst of all I've ever had in my life (since a kid), some took approximately 25 days to close and hurt so much I had to take painkillers to be able to eat while I was with Lilianne in my honeymoon. That was just the beginning, during the trip to the Andes, commemorative trip for the anniversary of my mother in law, and at the same Lilianne was with me to see the Andes mountains, and to know my beloved city: San Pedro de Atacama. The weather was bad, the mountains were accumulating meters of snow, and with access roads closed, daily rainfall in the city, flooding, then all associated with a heavy flu made me anticipate the flight and come home.

I'm a beta hound. You've got some info on a peak I want to climb? Gimme.

Gimme, gimme, GIMME!

Thank you so much! Now I can definitely climb it.

The Diamond Couloir’s first ascent was realized by Pete Snyder and Thumbi Mathenge in 1973, avoiding the steeper high section by a ramp on the left; this impressive upper section, named “Headwall”, was pioneered in 1975 by Yvon Chouinard and Michael Covington, who made famous the Diamond Couloir as one of the world's greatest ice climb; this magnificent line crosses the SW face of Mount Kenya, the second highest peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro, and surprisingly lies only 20 kilometers south of the Equator!

Yes, the Equator… Notwithstanding this fact, Mount Kenya is high enough to have various glaciers and receive conspicuous snowfalls. As a matter of fact we can’t consider it as a single peak, but rather as a complex massif, consisting of several smaller peaks, composed by syenite, an excellent kind of rock to climb, surrounding the two main peaks named Nelion and Batian.

It looks like a tale, but the most famous peak in Europe for a day become a “war game” scenery. Really? Have a look to this fragment of history hidden in the pages of an Italian newspaper very popular in the last century called “La Stampa”. Unfortunately the rhetoric typical of articles about sport during the Fascist dictatorship has darkened a bit the fascination of this ascent by the Italian Normal route, performed with minimum mountaineering gear, according to the spirit of first ascents.

In 2005 an event stunned the mountaineering community way beyond the French Alps: the Bonatti pillar on the Drus was totally washed away by a series of huge rock falls between June and September. Succeeding to 2003, one of the driest and warmest summer of the century, with constant rock falls all over the Alps ranges, an ‘annus horribilis’ for all climbers, with many routes totally impracticable as far too dangerous, including the ‘classic’ approach to Mont Blanc by the Gouter couloir, banned for most of the summer, this exceptional event put to light the damaging impact of the Global warming on the Alps and consequently on all mountaineers. Hence this question: and what about the future?

The Groupe des Grimpeurs Marseillais was created by 'The Greek', Georges Livanos following the example of the G.H.M. The poem was published in the 1961 G.G.M. bulletin. Its author, André Tête, was a climber with whom I did in 1960, at 18, the North face of the Vignemale in the Pyrenees in a week-end. We left Marseille early Saturday morning, on a small motorbike (mine. My mother bitterly regretted to having let my father buy it for me and sold it off when I went studying in the UK the following year!), drove the 650 km to the foot of the face, reached late afternoon, bivouacked at the foot, climbed the route on the Sunday and were back in Marseille late the same day. Quite a trip, particularly since André was a very tall fellow, near 6 feet 4 and not that light. With our climbing gear, it was quite a test for my small motorbike and our maximum speed never exceeded 90/Km an hour!.