ON RIDGES AND OTHER SHADOWS - CLIMBING FROM FRANCE TO ITALY, THROUGH SWITZERLAND -

By Francesco Riva Summer 2006

Switzerland. I have spent all my life in this country, without realizing there were mountains here. I’ve been walking on them every summer, with my parents, without knowing it. I remember those drives, trying to sleep on the back seat, hoping that the car will never stop and the walk will never start. I didn’t even peer through the window, no feeling for those steep golden fields, snaky dusty roads, varicose turquoise rivers and clean rock faces. It seemed endless, and senseless, driving for an hour to get to places that where no different from what I could see from my bedroom. If I only knew that a few years later three hours each way on a day wouldn’t stop me from climbing… The start was always hard, but hearing my father saying that I had a good stamina and was a strong lad, was a much better incentive than the impressive sceneries, the fresh air and the mountain silence that would drag my mother up those valleys, which appeared like the last place where life would find reason to be. “There is only one thing worse than going uphill: going downhill” my climbing friend Ben told me last summer, after seven hours of walking down from the top of Piz Badile. As a child, I didn’t know where or what Piz Badile was, but I surely didn’t like my knees turning into pudding. The best part of the day was surely the drive back home, healthily and infinitely tired from the walk, the sun and the change of pressure, I would wake up just before the car would turn the corner and bring me back home. Beside a big deal of endorphins and a red neck, I thought the mountain had given me nothing at the end of the day. By far, I was wrong.

From the Chardonnay

Chamonix, Beginning of July. Many years have passed now, my situation hasn’t changed much, but my attitude has! I’m still sitting on the back seat, hoping that the bus will never stop, but now my eyeballs are not fast enough to satisfy my mind and calm my love for mountains, as they run from one peak to the other, through seracs and moraines, mixing bluewhitebluegreenandgrey. Like eyes blinded by the shining snow, I needed some time abroad to recognize details in the shade, to notice the mountains around me. A couple of years north of the channel certainly helped. Not only for its gentle pastures, that warm the soul of timeless painters and burn the hearts of restless explorers, but for the adventurers themselves. Never before have I come across such an unconditional love for rocks, stones, cliffs and distant mountains; never before have I met, or even heard of, such great and passionate mountaineers. Most surprising is that their achievements are not left to forgetfulness, but provided as example and opportunity for young alpinists (I refer, for instance, to the Irvine Memorial Fund and the Conville Memorial Trust).

Arrete de Forbes, on the Chardonnay

The sight of the alps getting closer and closer and their appearance changing from snow-dome-like from the airplane to an

impressive barrier of nature from their bases, certainly shows one how effective fifty million years of evolution are. A stormy night down in the valley reminded me of the power of nature: the inside of my tent looked like it was lightened by fireworks, and the continuous rain made me think I was sleeping in a waterfall. It was only with the first lights of the morning that I could distinguish the reason for my presence at the foot of the Mont Blanc massive; surrounded by sparse clouds, the Chardonnay looked impressive and sparked fear in my thoughts. However, due to the planned early start the next morning, I still had many hours to think about it, as I lay in my tent waiting for the darkness to come. The Arrète de Forbes is a classic route of the French alps: after crossing the glacier de la Tour, one climbs the steep snow slopes of the north-eastern face of the Chardonnay; passed the “Bosse”, a scarily steep ice slope, one faces a long ridge which leads to the summit. The descent is along the west face and becomes very dangerous once the sun warms it, hence the early start. I remember the long walk along the glacier, the boundaries of the world were set by the power of my head torch, for several hours everything fitted in that white circle in front of me, regularly scratched by the point of my crampons. Too focussed on the walk, I became aware of the outside world only at the foot of the Bosse; I switched my torch off and admired my own shadow, stretched by the early sun for hundreds of meters. The lack of oxygen made the top part of the climb seem even more lunar, in particular a delicate passage where the trace of a fallen body stopped by a rope was clearly distinguishable. What a special taste, that chocolate bar on the top, though! That first breath of alpine air remained with us during the following days, as we explored other routes in the Mont Blanc massif and again, later on, as we occasionally stopped in the Swiss French Valais for rock climbing, during our trip from Western to Southern Switzerland.

Rodi, Canton Ticino. I have a particularly sweet memory of an ascent of the Piz Prévat, on the border between the Italian part of Switzerland known as Ticino and its neighbour canton, the Wallis (as pronounced by the German speaking communities near its eastern border). The curious name of this mountain, the “Priest Peak”, is due to its three 600m big steep granite ridges that lead to the top and resemble an antique cleric hat. On this occasion I was joined by my girlfriend Romina, a lovely climbing creature acquainted mainly with the pleasures of the sunny grit slabs of southern Ticino and still unaware of the threats and pleasures of alpine climbing. To smooth this transition we began by an easy Via Normale, along the Eastern ridge. What a wonderful day! We approached the mountain by a pleasant walk along delicate streams of crystal icy liquid that ran across the flat Campolungo plateau in such an intricate manner as to suggest a miserable attempt to escape the thousand meters of subsequent waterfalls that bring the water down to the valley. Crossing across green pastures dotted with wobbly pink rocks (as my little brother referred to pigs

walking through the tall grass) we placed our tent between the dark blue lakes of Tremorgio and Leit; blinding white stripes of dolomia resembled patches of melting snow in these alpine surroundings.

The North-East Ridge of the Piz Prevat

Leaving everything at the base camp, we slowly walked up a wide couloir that ends where the climb starts. On the way up, under a grey sky, we familiarized ourselves with the descent route for the next day. As we quickly approached the summit, a beam of sunshine slowly tore the clouds apart and prepared to reward our effort. Behind the tiny cairn that bounds earth and sky, a marvellous rainbow had been tailored in the sky; made brighter by the dark background, its colours and shape reflected the light of Romina’s eyes and her wide smile, as she enjoyed her first alpine summit.

From The Summit of Piz Prevat

Sadly, like a vanishing rainbow, her smile couldn’t last forever in that harsh surrounding. How terrible was the second day! It started under a timeless vanilla sky, the consequence of high altitude fog, where the only sign of life, besides the steam breathing out of our thermos, was the trace of an airline plane pointing directly to the Piz Prévat. It was cold, but we could see the ridge being warmed half way down by precious sunlight; we will soon be there, I thought. To make things easier, I led the climb, a task helped by the frequent bolts and pegs left by generations of climbers but impeached by my heavy rucksack, loaded with two pairs of mountain boots, rain coats, food and water. We quickly realized that this ascent was much more committing than the previous one and that probably there would be no picnic before nightfall. The route we had chosen started very steeply and followed the sharp north-eastern ridge almost mathematically, only to flatten fifty meters below the summit. With these characteristics, it accounted for one of the most exposed routes I had ever climbed, hundreds of meters of clean rock on both sides, followed by hundreds of meters of piled stones rapidly loosing steepness only to end in the fields down in the valley. I would have considered retreat, if it hadn’t seemed, at every length of rope, that the next pitch would be flatter, an illusion that never gave up to reality. Romina certainly didn’t like the menacing look

of this sharp granite blade and was soon overtaken by terror, but the fear of abseiling down in the known was even bigger than the fear of climbing up the unknown, so we moved on. That day will be remembered for a long time, thanks to a grotesque episode that followed a particularly hard traverse. The rope drag was just unbearable, due to a cumbersome zig-zag between granite flakes, so I set up an intermediate belay using a pair of slings. As we found ourselves hanging from just those slings, my climbing partner decided that that was just too much and, after suggesting that she would die there, she cried “this is teeeeribleeeee”, with a long and sobbing final “e”. The nearby ridges loudly reflected and amplified that bouncing sound, spicing it with an animalesque touch, with the result that both Romina and I burst into laugher! Thereafter Romina gained confidence and the ascent proceeded trouble-free for the rest of the day. Despite the long time it took us, about ten hours including descent to the valley, we managed to catch the last cable car and soaked in cold rain, made it back before nightfall. That little sunbeam that escorted us the day before, surely didn’t recognize our shy approach from the north: no rainbow was waiting for us.

Cresciano

Locarno, Canton Ticino. I climbed again in the neighbouring valley of Bedretto in the company of my cousin Thomas and then headed south to meet my friend Ben in central Ticino. There we spent some fabulous time bouldering in the world famous Cresciano where, after an endless sequence of one meter falls, one can dive in the paradisiacal pools that formed along the cold streams that stripe the surrounding forest. A similar setting is found in the nearby Maggia valley, particularly popular among Germans (we barely realized we left the Wallis). There, beautiful grit slabs converge in the river that defines the valley and offers a refreshing afternoon after a morning of intense sport climbing. Let me remember a route called “Alhambra”: 600m of climb evolving from a difficult slab to a French 6B vertical quartz wall on the top half. It took us only five hours to rush up these thirty pitches of route, trying to escape from the infernal hot sun that slowly burned its way up after us; we made it right in time! We spent the rest of the day sunbathing on top of the shiny rocks that bound the river; from time to time we abseiled down into the water, otherwise inaccessible from that privileged spot, for a refreshing swim.

The North Ridge of the Piz Badile

Bregaglia Valley, end of July. Alhambra had surely been good training for our final target: at the end of July, just before the weather was meant to turn bad, we planned to climb the Piz Badile. This 3308 m high immense granite face sharply defines the border between western Switzerland and the Italian Mello valley. It takes its name from the particular shovel-like shape, “badile” in the local dialect, and is particularly famous for its 1000m long North ridge and for the infamous Cassin route on the eastern face; we chose the former. The Saas Furà hut is just a one-hour walk from the bottom of the valley, through a forest of red pine trees that help hiding that menacing sight from behind the branches. We left there our backpacks and, wearing nothing but shorts, explored the route that leads to the start of the climb. It was a very hot day and, with Ben almost naked, we joked about how much we insisted on having to carry a light gear…

On the Ridge

We were not the only ones intending to climb the ridge the next day, so we decided to skip breakfast and leave the hut in the middle of the night, at 2.45am. At 2.30, however, we heard some voices outside: three ropes of Polish climbers were already walking towards the ridge. Faster than ever, we rushed out of bed

and sped after the Polish party. Luckily we managed to overtake them right as the ridge was becoming steep enough to require the use of ropes. It was only the following day, that we read in the newspapers that two Polish climbers had to be helicopter-rescued from the ridge during a storm! We climbed the first few rope-lengths in complete darkness, and then started to move together on the easy ground as soon as twilight came. Hand after hand and foot after foot, in an endless sequence of natural movements, we quickly gained altitude as the scenery became gradually more impressive and rewarding. I couldn’t stop thinking of my grand parents that climbed this very route shortly before I was born, some thirty years ago! Same rock, same holds, a lifetime of difference. After a slightly more difficult pitch on the north face, the ridge gradually loses steepness and the ascent looses interest. It took us five hours of climbing to reach the summit, surrounded by grey clouds, where white deposits of hail fallen the previous night were still clearly visible in the shady cracks. What a terrible place to spend a stormy night! We quickly changed boots and started abseiling down the western face, into the Italian side. Thousands of climbers have left a cemetery of abseil slings, pegs and bolts that lead down different couloirs into separate valleys… Which will be the right one? It felt like a lottery, until we heard an Italian voice speaking to us, “not that one, it’s a rescue abseil route… you want the one that leads to the left”. It was an old man speaking, visibly a guide, judging by the way he held the rope that led to a younger fellow climbing down in front of him: they looked like a dog and its owner. His name was Giovanni Rusconi, a part of the history of Piz Badile, as we realized later on; some years before, he opened a new route on the west face in winter time, the “Via del Fratello”, named after his dead brother. We are still very grateful to him for showing us the delicate path that leads to the bottom of the mountain. There are several ways of coming down from the Badile, either by abseiling back along the north ridge or by descending into the Italian side, walking down the valley and arranging for a transport back to Switzerland. We chose the third: to walk across the Porcellizzo and Turbinasca passes from Italy back to the Saas Furà hut, a horrible walk on the debris left by the continuous landslides on the moraines. Described as a seven hours walk, it took us only four, pushed by a multitude of thick clouds approaching from the south. We crossed both passes just in time to see the bad weather temporary being stopped by the mountain ranges. By the time we arrived at the hut, we were completely exhausted. That’s when we heard the first thunder. We quickly ran down to the car park under the pouring rain, rushed by the approaching storm, the day was finally over. As the sky turned into purple with every lightning bolt, followed by the dry echo of apocalyptic thunder, my mind bounced back and forth between the thought of climbers possibly trapped on the mountain and the words on Victor Hugo’s tomb: “Anyway, it happens always to other people”.