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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Sep 16, 2011 - 12:55am PT
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J Brennan
that's a great story. Bonatti was a class act.
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 16, 2011 - 12:40pm PT
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One of the smiliest people I ever met...
wonderful to talk to, a joy to be around,
thoughtful, very smart.
While others might be critical,
I never heard him say a bad thing about anybody,
and he had some very supportive and realistic things to say
about a certain abeit disputed Cerro Torre ascent.
His teeth were a little toooo straight though
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Sep 16, 2011 - 01:14pm PT
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sad news RIP
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 19, 2011 - 07:47am PT
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It seems strange to me that this thread would go down and away
so fast. A few thoughts.
When Walter was a child he used to get away from his
home and/or school and go to a secret place where he could "watch
the eagles fly." He writes of the skies of the Prealps, and a pair
of eagle "predators" which had chosen for their nest a rock just above the
area where Walter played -- Vertova di Valseriana, one of the valleys
north of Bergamo (where he was born June 22, 1930). Farther
up the ridge was Mount Alben, a peak that triggered his imagination,
with its white limestone spires, often wreathed in mist. He came to
know nature, even, as he says, to "idolize" it, the beauty, the
austerity. From the beginning, the mountains were the perfect place
for Walter to develop. He followed an inherent need to test himself
and learn of his capabilities. Each climb made him feel all the
more alive, capable, and free. He found immediate fulfillment,
and especially, as the years went by, when he began to
climb solo. Here, he entered into what he has
referred to as "the very spirit of the mountains." Through
solo climbs he came to know his own true nature and began to
sense and realize his abilities. He realized his limits, as well.
He had no help from support parties. No rescue groups waited
out along the periphery of experience.
He would have to pay for any misakes he made. To
climb, for Bonatti, was equivalent to reflection. Much deep thought.
He says he listened to his own inner voice.
Bonatti wondered if he was born a loner... or became one. He did
become somewhat disillusioned by the actions of people, at times.
His truest adventures, as he has written, started from the moment
they took shape in his mind and imagination. It was for him then
to convert such visions into reality. Imagine a solo ascent of
the Dru, way back when he wore clunky Vibram boots, when
equipment was primitive. Robbins and Harlin could barely get up
that 3000-foot wall, with all their modern pitonware,
its sheer faces and horrid loose blocks (was
it more than 3000 feet?). Such a route would be perhaps roughly
equivalent to an early solo of El Capitan, before Harding and bolts.
Walter speaks eloquently about how no one else can ever have
your experience. Your experience remains yours alone.
That's why I harp so much
about the futility of comparisons, of one generation to another,
or one climber to another. Experience is individual, as is artistry.
His philosophy, while complex, had a certain basic outlay. He thought
in terms of three inseparable elements: aesthetics, history, and ethics.
This was long before the climbing world in general began to
develop its finer philosophies. He adds that these elements
ultimately lead to "victory over your own human fraility." I would
liken this somewhat to karate, which, at its best, is the perfection
of the self through the perfection of an art.
"Courage," Walter has written, "makes a person a master of his
or her fate." He defines courage as "a civilized,
responsible determination not to succumb to impending
moral collapse." He distinguishes such
courage from "ill-advised courage." Climbing, for Walter brimmed with
joy and exaltation. He notes he did many wonderful, safe ascents with
a tranquil mind. But adventure, he admits, teaches the true measure of a
man.
Walter describes his early life as difficult, during the Second World
War, a boy with no prospects facing life in a defeated country. It
was during this time he came to know the Grigna. I was blessed in
1986 to climb in the Grigna, where both Bonatti and Cassin
started out. With some well-seasoned Italian prophet-like gentlemen
I climbed striking aretes and pinnacles, as mist floated
in and about these rock formations. I sensed, or thought I could sense,
those early days when Bonatti was here, on these same routes, many
years earlier. When I first learned of Bonatti, he was a grown
man and I a boy in about 1960 or so. In 1965, I believe, I came
across a magazine article with photos of the handsome, dark-haired
man after he had climbed solo a new route on the North Face of the
Matterhorn, a route that, as Messner later would declare, was
a major achievement back then and under the conditions of those
days. Indeed climbers today (many at least)
don't realize how different the consciousness of the climbing world
was, and how much of a true adventure such a climb was then,
much less solo. I had just come into my own, as an American
free climber, when Bonatti said his farewell to extreme climbing,
after sixteen intense years.
To meet him in England in 1984, finally, spend three days with
him, become his friend, receive letters from him, was a blessing
I cannot begin to express. Walter Bonatti remains with me, in
my heart and memory. I am an incurable romantic. He isn't
gone. How could he be, as long as we remember him? Let's
just say... he has gone to watch the eagles fly.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 19, 2011 - 08:13am PT
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Pat
Thank you for your personal story. One day we will all have gone to watch the eagles fly - and that's alright.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Sep 19, 2011 - 12:06pm PT
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 19, 2011 - 12:34pm PT
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I remember that photo - his solo of the Matterhorn N Face en hiver, n'est-ce pas?
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 20, 2011 - 02:47am PT
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As Bonatti descended Gasherbrum IV:
"...it was about noon before we got near Camp 5. Some shouts
reached us. It was De Francesch and Zeni, who had stayed
there to wait for us. When they heard our answering shouts, our
two friends came out of their tent to meet us. There they
were -- like two ghosts, just a few paces from us. We spoke
to them, we embraced them, but suddenly De Francesch, blinded
by the blizzard, disappeared from sight and was swallowed by
the precipice. Petrified, I watched him plunge headlong in a
flurry of snow and vanish into the darkness of the storm. Then,
through a fleeting rift in the clouds, there below us was a
black dot rolling down the slope. It was
De Francesch's body. It vanished yet again. It reappeared even farther
down as a shrinking, indistinct dot. Finally it was still. No -- it was
moving. He wasn't dead! De Francesch had come to rest at least 700 feet
below us at the bottom of the slope. Now he was crawling through the
soft, deep snow that had saved him. He headed toward the col below
us. We joined him there. Miraculously, he was unhurt.
"That same afternoon we all went down to Camp 4 and there rejoined
our companions. Next morning, on we went to Camp 3, then Camp 2, and so
on until base camp. We reached it three days after the conquest of
Gasherbrum IV, still lashed by the storm of the monsoon."
(from "The Mountains of my Life")
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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Sep 21, 2011 - 11:48am PT
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Link to obituary at AAC
I spent 1965 studying and climbing in Europe. Bonatti did the winter solo of the North Face of the Matterhorn a week or so before John Morton, Bill Peppin and I skied for a week at Zermatt. Weather was clear but cold, and at that time of year the North Face would have been in the shade the entire day.
I had a wonderful Italian girlfriend in the Fall of 1965 when I was studying in Germany. She was from Bergamo, Bonatti's birthplace. I spent Christmas with her family there before hitchhiking eastward to India, but at the time I did not know Bonatti was her homeboy.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Sep 27, 2011 - 11:55am PT
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Wonder what the true definition of an Italian houseboy is?
McLinsky, aka, Russ McLean use to say, "if you really want to make a name for yourself in climbing, find the routes that Bonatti backed down from and climb them."
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 27, 2011 - 11:59am PT
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How many would that have been? I do recall he backed off the Croz Spur about
6 times before doing it.
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sberna
Trad climber
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Sep 27, 2011 - 03:16pm PT
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"Hero", definition:
" 1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. "
CHECK: at least from my point of view and as far as I could read from various books and from comments in this post other persons as well
" 2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child. "
CHECK: facts: he saved some persons life on K2 and on the Alps.
DMT had doubts whether he was a hero... I bring some arguments above... may we have the counter-arguments?
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 27, 2011 - 03:30pm PT
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Remember times were different then. They didn't have
modern ice gear, crampons, axes, tools, etc. It was
a hell of a lot harder to climb a face of mixed snow and
ice, with mostly just gloved hands, and boots, an axe,
and to others delicately roped, from scary single anchors,
or to go it alone... Sometimes backing off had to do with
conditions of the face, layered with a kind of ice that
was unclimbable, for example. One could retrace all of
Bonatti's steps and never be equal to them.
There is no doubt Bonatti was
a great individual with a strong disposition toward doing
things in style. We don't need the word "hero," especiallly,
because his actions were continuous and throughout his
climbing career and our respect not based on a mere moment
or given situation. It was the overall sense we had of
his greatness. One needs to read "The Mountains of my Life"
to get a feel of just a portion of Bonatti's life,
a truly remarkable one.
Small aside:
That photo on Vanity Fair looks so much like Charlie Fowler.
Strangely the two, Bonatti and Fowler, were alike in some
respects. Both had that bold spirit. Charlie did some amazing
soloes, for example the Diamond and DNB in Yosemite, and
Charlie showed he was a master at all forms of climbing,
racing up things like the Eiger and doing things in Patagonia,
but leading 5.12 in Eldorado....
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 27, 2011 - 04:04pm PT
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Wonderfully put Mr. Ament. Thanks!
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sberna
climber
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Sep 27, 2011 - 04:58pm PT
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you are probably correct Patrick...
when I read DMT comment about not being an "hero" I gave it a somewhat negative/diminutive meaning
I liked what you wrote:
QUOTE We don't not need the word "hero," UNQUOTE
and Bonatti was probably not even looking for definitions like that, big labels or praises... I think he looked for justice, fairness, respect, true friendship and probably this is what he wanted to be remembered
when reading the latest books on the K2 issue I felt he was not in peace yet and unfortunately I did not know about the most recent developments... I am extremely happy that my "paesani" (CAI in primis) eventually cleared the entire events the way he hoped for: I am sure now he RIP
I certainly need to read again "The Mountains Of My Life" :-)
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 27, 2011 - 05:04pm PT
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I can't imagine how anyone could ever quite get over
some of the tragedies and things that happened along the
way of his life. Yet as such a visible person in his day
it was only natural that many would find fault or try
to read things into events. A sensitive soul, I believe
it deeply hurt Walter to imagine anyone would question
his integrity. Even if all that stuff is/was worked out in
some supposed right way, I doubt he ever would have
lived it down and likely didn't. When one tries so very
hard to be the right person, and then things happen to
question that, it can be truly devastating. I think I
know a little about such stuff....
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pk_davidson
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Sep 28, 2011 - 02:21am PT
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Bonatti was the only climbing hero I ever had. It was an honor to be part of the Piolet d'Or delegation that presented him a lifetime achievment award a couple of years ago.
Now that, is so cool Jim.
A lifetime award for him, a lifetime memory for you.
Need to go dig out some old blue & orange gates in tribute...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 29, 2011 - 05:06pm PT
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Very nice job, Luca. I noticed the one passage about
his attitude changing, after contact with some English
speaking climbers. I hope I might have fit in there somewhere.
Those were amazing days, though only three, to be with
Bonatti in England. I cherish the long letters he wrote
me. I seriously chastize myself for never
taking him up on his invitation to Italy to do a book about him.
My life wasn't together enough then, though maybe had I gone
it would have been. Who knows...?
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