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The history of mountaineering falls apart

2022-09-20T10:46:07.980Z


The collapse of the Fourche refuge, under the Brenva slope of Mont Blanc, erases the starting point of the great Frêney tragedy


We knew that the seasons of the year modify the aesthetics of the mountains, alter the conditions for approaching them, that the spectacle of the peaks seen from afar seems like a static image, although at short distances a world in movement and evolution can be seen.

We did not have the tragic evidence of this heatwave summer that has forever altered the history of alpine settings.

To date, men and women went up and down, top to top top to bottom, ephemeral figures on the hunt for who knows what in a setting apparently sheltered from human use.

This is no longer the case: the Alps, where the idea of ​​mountaineering was born, are falling apart, erasing rock routes, ice trails, itineraries and also refuges.

For example, three mythical places associated with the greatest mountaineer there ever was, Walter Bonatti, no longer exist: the southwest pillar of the Dru, the Charpoua refuge from which he set out in 1955 to trace a colossal solo itinerary to its summit, and, finally, the Vivac de la Fourche.

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Articles written by Oscar Gogorza

There were many warnings of what was to come, but none loaded with so much symbolism as the frightening collapse of the proud and suggestive southwest pillar of the Dru, also called Pilar Bonatti, which occurred in 2005. Suddenly, the route on which the Italian guide spent five nights without knowing if it would be able to reach the top, it had ceased to exist, leaving only a huge smokescreen and 260,000 cubic meters of rock scattered everywhere.

The most lyrical wanted to see a kind of suicide, a pillar that refused to see the disaster that we see around him today.

The Charpoua refuge was also beginning to threaten its ruin and this summer it was reverently dismantled to begin reconstruction work.

Bonatti wrote that after leaving the shelter, he slammed its wooden door so as not to give in to the temptation to go back in, collect his belongings, and flee without confronting the Dru.

This summer, which has seen huge rock avalanches on the Mont Blanc normal route, the Lyon del Cervino ridge falling apart, huge rock slides on the Tour Ronde or the Cosmiques ridge and countless similar disasters on so many walls, has suffered another symbolic loss: the Fourche shelter.

Hanging on an edge, the tiny mansion now rests destroyed three hundred meters below, on the glacier, due to the collapse of the entire platform that supported it.

Indirectly, this refuge embedded at the start of the Kuffner ridge to Mont Maudit (and also the starting point for the Brenva slope of Mont Blanc), was forever associated with Walter Bonatti after the so-called great tragedy of the Central Pillar of Freney.

Located at 3,675 meters, on the border between France and Italy, it was built in 1935 and completely renovated 50 years later, but this place will always be associated with an image: the snapshot in which they appear smiling, happy and carefree Pierre Mazeaud, Robert Guillaume , Antoine Veille and Pierre Kohlmann on July 8, 1961. Days later, all but Pierre Mazeaud were dead.

The shelter of La Fourche before its collapse.

On July 9, the Vivac de la Fourche is filled to overflowing when Walter Bonatti and his friends Andrea Oggioni and Roberto Gallieni appear.

Embarrassing situation: the seven want to climb the Central Pillar of the Frêney, a huge rock bastion with a final 60 meters of invincible aspect.

It is the last great alpine problem, the wildest way to reach Mont Blanc (4,808 meters).

Bonatti asks the French to leave first.

Not even in dreams, they answer him.

Thus, they decide to ally themselves, help each other and form a single rope because Bonatti does not understand competitions in the mountains but he does understand solidarity.

After spending a night on the wall, they reach the site of their second bivouac, but then the storm arrives, not a passing one, but a true meteorological phenomenon that sweeps half of France for days.

That same afternoon, lightning strikes Kohlmann through his hearing aid.

He is alive, but gone.

On July 14, five days after starting their adventure, in the middle of a fierce snow blizzard, they lose hope of getting out of the top.

Bonatti, who already knows what it is to survive when the mountain is a crusher, organizes the retreat, which turns into a carnage.

The Italian pulls on his teammates, mounts rappels, forces them to fight despite the danger, frostbite, thirst and hunger.

Antoine Veille, the youngest at just 22 years old, dies at dawn on July 15, exhausted.

Robert Guillaume, too, just a few hours later.

Kohlmann is still alive, but when he becomes delirious and attacks Gallieni, he and Bonatti have no choice but to leave him in the snow and scramble to find help they find at the Gamba shelter.

But the rescuers will only pick up Mazeaud alive: Oggioni, Bonatti's great friend, almost a brother, has fallen asleep on his shoulder and will not wake up.

Kohlmann was dead when struck by lightning, but the death certificate reached him five days later.

The tragedy was massively and sensationally followed by the French and Italian media: suddenly, a culprit was needed.

It was not enough to mourn the dead.

And Bonatti, the man who was saved and thanks to him, Gallieni and Mazeaud, was reproached for staying alive.

Oggioni's family forbade her to attend his funeral and burial.

Four years later, barely 35 years old, Bonatti would say goodbye to mountaineering, as much in love with the mountains as he was disgusted by the human condition.

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Source: elparis

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