Walter Bonatti, mountaineering legend
For Sebastián Álvaro, creator of "On the Edge of the Impossible" *
A few months ago, in September, fallecía a Roma, with 81 years, Walter Bonatti, the greatest climber of his generation and most ethical reference in the world of mountain. Of it has been said that was "pure climber who ever lived". An honest guy who even at the time of his death left him in peace. Following in his footsteps many young people yearned to be climbers Bonatti, Bonatti unaware that there was only one and it was, Today we know with certainty, unique figure. When one day I decided to do "Edge of the Impossible", I can confess it was a key example of the greatest adventurers, including Walter Bonatti always contained in a place of honor. The years tell me that among his friends are pleased that today I can look with pride. That's why I had these lines.
While one can say, with strong arguments, that fellow sports history Reinhold Messner is higher, however, the quantity and quality of mountaineering companies, made fifteen years ago, his travels and explorations, are such that even today are an indisputable benchmark. But their contribution is even higher ideological and ethical. Because as few Bonatti represents the core values of mountaineering and adventure: purity and cleanliness of the game, an ethic coupled with unsurpassed aesthetic sports, requiring staff, Spartans end up, and greater commitment to the uncertainty and risk.
The K2 is one of the few mountains that not only seduces you with its beauty and the vast emptiness of the Karakorum, it forces you to face your fears, the abyss of your inner self
Walter Bonatti shared with not only a solid friendship but the passion for mountain: el K2, Mountain Mountain. Surely it exerted an influence in our lives than any other. The K2 is one of the few mountains that not only seduces you with its beauty and the vast emptiness of the Karakorum, it forces you to face your fears, the abyss of your inner self. And that feeling that provokes Kant called "the sublime feeling", a mixture of fascination and horror. The Adventure of the mark you always K2, for better and for worse, and for both of us, thirty years apart, there was always a before and after the K2.
And 1954, despite his youth, Walter was selected to be part of the Italian group that carried out the first ascent of K2, the second highest mountain on Earth. Today we know that is, within the highest, the hardest, committed and dangerous on the planet. He played a key role, transporting the bottles on the end of the climb, that nearly cost him his life to be abandoned to their fate by his two companions to eight thousand feet and having to spend a terrible night in the open next to a carrier hunzaki. Only his legendary strength, mental and physical, allowed to leave alive. But returning to Italy did not recognize their role in the conquest of K2 and, also, faced an insidious campaign of lies and insults. But never bowed Bonatti and fifty years was fighting for his honor.
One of its features, that marked both his adventures and his life, it always was a tireless fighter. The escalation of the famous pillar west of Dru, held in solitary 1955, the north side of the face of the Matterhorn on his retirement, his dramatic adventure in the central pillar of Freney on 1961, or frightening escalation of the most beautiful mountain in the Karakorum, El Gasherbrum IV, without repeating today, have already been in the history of adventure and have had much more significance alpine climbs the vast majority of today are made in the Himalayas. End, and fifty years late, the Italian Alpine Club was forced to admit that his performance in the K2 had been decisive and had told everything was exactly the whole truth in "the case of K2", with which the figure was "rehabilitated". Bonatti, with bitter irony, replied that he did not need rehabilitation, those in need were they. It was the triumph of honesty versus lies, of ethics against abuse of power.
Living with dignity, I said, also means knowing how to die with dignity. Walter had faced death many times, had also seen the death of fellow, and he had always done with courage and honesty
Late last summer of pancreatic cancer, he knew was incurable, began to develop such fulminant. But until a few days before its activity continued to develop normally, writing and directing his photo archive. That was the excuse I gave for not returning to Spain to walk together in the Pyrenees. Now becomes important memory I have of a conversation about mountain accidents. Living with dignity, I said, also means knowing how to die with dignity. Walter had faced death many times, had also seen the death of fellow, and he had always done with courage and honesty. Maybe that's why we shared an admiration for the great adventurer Louis of Savoy, son of King Amadeus I of Spain that, being Italian, born in 1873 at the Royal Palace of Madrid and was to die in Somalia 1933, far from the court and the Italian political class. He did it voluntarily because only there, in his words, would be safe from "the hypocrisy of civilized men".
Unfortunately my friend did not even have that opportunity at the time of his death. In a clinic in Rome prevented him from religious to be in his last moments with his life partner, because "they were not legally married". Bonatti, again, had to face alone his last great challenge. But it was the first time. And 1965, tired of the controversy unleashed in their country, who accompanied him in all his adventures, made his last big climb: the north face of the Matterhorn in winter and solo, slamming the door and withdrew from the alpine scene envious harassed him. He was only 35 years and could continue climbing mountains many years and many. In those embodied a kind of modern Achilles in the mountains. They were troubled times in a changing world. Times of the Cold War and the Beatles, of the missile crisis or the Berlin Wall, del sputnik y de Gagarin, Kennedy Kruschev y. Too long for a simple and honest man, straight lines. And he took refuge in his adventures, books and photographs. His early eclipse drank the same silence of those great artists, his contemporaries, they left everything in his youth: actress Greta Garbo, Bobby Fischer the chess player or singer Jacques Brel, who retired from the track on 1966, to 40 years. Perhaps this complex world, that was brewing we live in today, and did not deserve more films of Greta Garbo, and another song by Jacques Brel. Nor did another escalation of the great Bonatti.
Behind the curious eyes we discover the man who all his life adventurer chose the hardness, and fascination, of a road filled with uncertainty about the comfort of certainty
You lose the climber but from 1965 Bonatti el de universe if expands. While the camera incorporates an ice ax and pen. In Time magazine tells us impenetrable jungles, lost desert, stormy seas, unknown tribes. And it does so with a sensibility that still excites us and makes us long for this extraordinary world that he was lucky to live. Behind the curious eyes we discover the man who all his life adventurer chose the hardness, and fascination, of a road filled with uncertainty about the comfort of certainty, curiosity to venture into the unknown against the stability and comfort of the regulated and known, the courage and enthusiasm of the beginner, pleasant against the installation which is believed already has obtained all. In short the adventurer, of action and mind, that never stands still, always risks, although there may fail, why is there that feels alive.
Since then, more than 30 years, Walter and his partner, Actriz the famous Italian Rossana Podesta, not separated, until last 13 September in which the doctor denied that right. They toured the world, unpublished adventures lived and saw the most beautiful and remote. And not legally married. Because they did not need papers, or judges, religious or legalizasen the love they felt. The last interview I did three years ago has become a kind of will and, at the same time, tribute at his best. It told me today that he would not mountaineer, because "everything changed". "The climbers of today live their own time, have not known the extent of the mountaineering classic. To them goes well and. Well. I have to go well with them. But I was not going well. I am a man of other times and I'd rather be in my day. Before the climber is mediated by their capacity for suffering, tenacity, and to undertake the risk. Now that no longer exists. Only victory and glory false, worthless. And in the end what you have conquered? You climbed a rock, but have not conquered your limits, has not won anything, has not overcome the impossible, and feel the fascination of overcoming the impossible ... "
Friend, I think exactly the same. Share your time, those in which every true sense of escalating distilled Adventure, much more soul and brain than muscle, the competition record. So, likely, is also a man of the past. And I hope to stay, like you, to the end at that time. I just hope the fortune, and good men, allow me to be safe "the hypocrisy of civilized men".
That the earth will be mild.
* Alvaro Sebastian is one of those responsible for China Land of Adventure, a Spanish company that organizes adventure trips by car, moto, trekking and mountain bike cycling through the most inaccessible parts of Asia expert at the hands of adventurers and explorers. Unforgettable routes through the deserts wildest, the lush forests and beautiful mountains of the Far East.
Comments (3)
Mariluz
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"Let the earth be mild"… What a great ending to a great story. Congratulations to Travel to the Past. With Sebastian Alvaro, Javier Reverte and his list of contributors has become a team of Champions
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Jon
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Interesting reflections on the drift of Himalayan climbers and strains as Bonatti of those already being left few. CONGRATULATIONS
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3milio
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Truly what is said is very logical, the techniques that were formerly used for climbing, escalation, was simple, therefore, danger involved and imagination, now, everything is easier, and of course also dies, but it really is very pronounced imprudent, before, had a string of difficulties, and had to calibrate step by step.
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