The Matterhorn for me is a school of life. It is a school of life because what I have learned on the Matterhorn, what I continue to learn, I have had the luck and the privilege of taking it
to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. There are beautiful mountains all over the world. The Matterhorn for us is "the" mountain. Wherever you look at it, you find it special. Going up the Valtournenche valley, from Chatillon up, arrived in Antey, weather permitting you can see this pyramid, still always framed in the same place and this gives you relief, and you return home, period. We see the Matterhorn almost as a human character. So there is an extremely special relationship with this mountain. He is an extremely interesting character, very serious, a bit haughty and a bit capricious too. Probably we too in our character have taken a little bit of the character that the Matterhorn gave us. The Matterhorn is my home mountain, alas I have climbed it 94 times, through 16 different routes and I feel a bit part of the furniture on this mountain, like an old piece of furniture in a living room. The Matterhorn is a mountain in its own right, anyone who knows it and has had to deal with other mountains knows that the Matterhorn is very special. For us the Matterhorn from Cervinia is the south face, it is clear that there are 4 walls on the Matterhorn, but the south face is much more complicated than you can imagine. You have to go inside to understand what it is. Hey guys how's it going? How are you, boss?
Fine. On 27th – 28th February and 1st March 2022 together with Emrik Favre and Francesco Ratti, we repeated the last route established by Patrick Gabarrou
on the south face of the Matterhorn. This route is a concatenation of two routes, the first one is "Padre Pio pray for us"
and the second is "L’ Echelle Vers le Ciel". Patrick Gabarrou with this latest creation wanted to create, he wanted to draw on the south face of the Matterhorn
a real Big Wall in pure American style, as is done on the Capitan. So the combination of these two routes makes exactly 41 pitches,
with a maximum grade of 7b. The Golden Hour! Both routes were established by Patrick Gabarrou with several climbing partners and in several years of attempts. He, let's say, wanted to persist in this vision of him, because he thought it logical and beautiful to be able
to climb the Matterhorn with this style. I want to discover the southern face of the Matterhorn, I had already climbed the Lion's Ridge, but I did not know the southern face, the northern face is very well known in terms of history, the Carrel, the Bich, the Barmasse, quite a story, but for us the south side is a lot of climbing with very bad rock, falling rocks but also extraordinary exploits and among others the famous overhangs of Furggen, with Carrelino in '41. But really it was to give myself a little gift of mountain history and that day, like that, I look at all this, I start … and without any idea, and suddenly I see an extraordinary obelisk
in the mass of the Matterhorn, and on the right I read "Pillar of Flowers". There are two walls like that on the south side, but there I didn't imagine there was an entire obelisk with very good rock. We will try to open a modern route, which really goes through the slabs and everything
to find the most beautiful rock. And that's actually July. In June we both went to Rome, for the canonization of Padre Pio, for me truly the saint of my heart. At the same time both of us walk side by side and we say, if we complete this route, we dedicate it to Padre Pio. And so we arrive at the foot of the wall and, extraordinary, instead of having this crevasse which marks this passage between the snow and the rock where you never know what to do, right there there’s a horizontal terrace of two square meters … we say Padre Pio thought of everything, laughing. And there we will put our first spit and then open, equip two lengths with the drill and we say
“what a beautiful rock!” Boss leaving.
Come on boss! Padre Pio prays for everyone. Come on, wonderful day huh! This route is an atypical route for the Matterhorn, because it is a totally rock climbing route and it is a route that unites, let's say, 3 pillars: the Pilastro dei Fiori (Pillar of the Flowers),
the central pillar that Gabarrou named Simona Hosquet in honor of Simona, a guide of the Matterhorn
unfortunately lost in 2014 in an avalanche, and the pillar of the so-called Furggen nose. The characteristic of this route is that it starts from the base of the Matterhorn and arrives at the top, all through a series of logical rock pitches very beautiful in my opinion. The wind is blowing from the North East, we are quite sheltered, the sun and temperatures are good, let's see, however, there is a bit of wind. Last year around the same time more or less, it was the beginning of March we made an attempt on this route, which did not go well. We had practically climbed the first 19 pitches of Padre Pio, we stopped to bivouac, then the following days a mist arrived, some snow that no longer allowed us to climb . Emrik what do you think, how’s the weather? Beautiful! I've never seen it snow uphill, yet this also happens on the Matterhorn! So reluctantly we left all the gear that was not essential and we decided to go down, aiming to go up again a few days later. Then actually the March weather changed and the gear hung there for a year. Yes to the left, right up a little higher to the left, a meter to the left. This boss has to be guided here because he doesn't see the bolts. Emrik Emrik…. Base camp base camp… open… here Open the oxygen! François here, Franz sherpa… clean the mountain with Franz! We wanted to repeat this route first of all to understand
what Gabarrou had done, to understand his vision, understand his dream and then the thing that teased us was to take this style of Big Wall a bit far from us and that we practice a little, it meant climbing with this style in the colder season. That is, in winter with shorter days, a wall dirty with snow and ice. Emrik you detach that carabiner underneath and put the shoulder straps behind in the bag, ok? Boss when you want! Francesco and Emrik are arranging the bag. We are finally on the cool pitches of Padre Pio. Here it is always beautiful and it's up to me,
ha ha, lucky me! Franz on the hard pitch of Padre Pio, 6c and 6c+. When you are on a wall as big as the south face of the Matterhorn, you feel small, at the same time you feel very close to civilization
because you have Cervinia right below you. It is incredible when you are on the Matterhorn and the après-ski starts
in Cervinia you can hear the music. And so at four you are there and you start to hear
tunz tunz tunz and you say "Hey, I'm here I still have four pitches to get to the bivouac and down there are those who drink beers". In reality then you know that you are an ant on a giant wall, so it is a bit of a strange effect, eh. Here we are first bivouac, we are preparing dinner and we are already packed in our sleeping bags and nothing, in a while we will enjoy some well-deserved rest. Let's say you were fairly well in the sun, the rock got hot and you could easily climb with your bare hands. At night we really suffered from the cold. Emrik, look here and smile.
Hellooooo! Boss, you look like you are in oxygen deficiency. The boss is pissed. Here is my sleeping bag, frozen. We arrived at the place we had selected for the bivouac at the right time, there was no time left and at that moment I was leading, I started to struggle to find a suitable place for the bivouac, in the end we had to settle as we could on a small terrace carved into the snow. Here my dinner doesn't want to cook, instead my two terrible friends are reveling, eh!?
Oh yes! We had to dig a kind of ledge to sit down. But we were very uncomfortable, practically hanging from the harness. During the bivouac while we were cooking dinner, Francesco continued to slide on the mattress towards the valley, so he was hanging in his harness. We went to sleep, we were staying there more or less, and at a certain point Francesco, after a while he could stand it anymore, he opted to lie down on me. So I stayed there for a moment, then I decided to sit down so I stayed with my feet hanging down in the valley
and my back resting on the snow so I stayed until dawn like this without sleeping. What's cooking in the pot? Water, water Our beautiful shitty bivouac at the tip of a rock, one in the arms of the other. So surely the worst moment is the night, but it gets through, in short, if you are a little used to sleeping outside, you know that you just have to wait, and then the next day we leave again. For me and Francesco, perhaps it is a bit customary now to try
to complete our projects in the coldest moments of winter. It is not something desired, however, often the cold in winter is synonymous with stable weather and for some aspects it is also synonymous with safety. The start was not easy because we had to cross a whole area of
ledges full of snow and therefore quite difficult to cross, in short, we had to trace in the snow that was a little deep, etc. And then when we took this pillar, what Gabarrou calls the famous Simona pillar and where there are the highest difficulties of the route. Here the difficulties are high, 7b, tiredness is felt. The sun cooks us The sun cooks us today, yesterday it was very cold. And there when we started climbing there it was really nice to understand that the rock, first that the rock was beautiful, the pitches were beautiful so I was having fun climbing and in the sun we were fine. Emrik in jumar mode. I think we all understood that we had a good chance of being able
to take it home, because we were there on the most difficult part of the route and we all felt comfortable, we were progressing well, so there we really became aware of the fact that we had a lot of good chances to get to the top this time. Could we manage to reach the summit of the Matterhorn? Come on Padre Pio help me a little! And for several years we reserve the last week of July
with two Swiss guide friends Denis Burdet and Nicolas Zambetti to try to make a traverse that we spotted. This famous overhanging pillar, which gives the key to the pillar of the sky above. But each time it will be bad weather, and now the years pass, we are all … we work as guides, so we have little availability and five years ago, six years ago I tell myself before I reach the limit of age it is absolutely necessary
that I finish this route. I say this year it will be the year of Padre Pio to the top of the Matterhorn. Equipping a route with Patrick Gabarrou is really playing a football match with Ronaldo except that we are not in a football match with Ronaldo, we are with a person who is fundamentally nice to spend time with people and live an experience. Patrick really knows how to live a shared experience, to be in the beauty of things, to listen to things. I think Ronaldo there is more money involved, yes. We thought a lot about Patrick because the further we went the more we understood his vision and his idea. Ehh he had a super vision, because the south face of the Matterhorn is very complex and he managed to come up with a really beautiful and enjoyable route. Nice to climb and it wasn't easy in that context. The ability to choose the line besides Padre Pio was truly futuristic. Still at the age of sixty, he wanted to get involved on a difficult mountain, on a difficult face, we have mentioned him several times. And really we have equipped this route in the most beautiful way possible, by taking the most beautiful places of rock etc. We cleaned everything up, we made bivouacs saying
"that's it for happiness for the others". And so we were waiting for it to be repeated and it is really a great joy for me to know that it was François
who dreamed of it, we had talked about it, and with his friends he repeated it. Ahh I was happy happy! Yes, because François is one of those young people like us, who is full of enthusiasm, of dreams but who doesn't just talk, who goes, who commits, who releases the moorings. Preparation of the bivouac in the sun, I would say Beautiful, beautiful! Five minutes of sunshine and then -20 guys ... as the good Red would say ... And here is the menu of tomorrow, the last tower, Furggen's nose. This route is very beautiful, it is very beautiful, you are in an incredible place! You are on the Matterhorn which is one of the symbolic mountains
of the Alps. Every time I opened my sleeping bag and saw the sunrise rising
over the valley, the lights, I said it to my partners: "well, we have a hard time, it's difficult but look at the view, we are the only ones to enjoy this!" The big difference is that on the Swiss side it is a very pointed mountain,
very sharp, soaring towards the sky. But when you come from the side of Cervinia and see this immense thing, as the British would say "massive wall", right? So giant. Then in reality we who know it know that the rock is not beautiful. So there were doubts about what we were going to find because we knew the first part of Padre Pio, we said "who knows who knows what will be up there, what rot we will find". In reality, however, it is a beautiful route from start to finish. We finally arrived at the Furggen Nose, yesterday we climbed the Simona pillar and today we are here to do the pitches on Furggen's nose. A difficult thing to explain, the Matterhorn is a geologically strange mountain, but at times it has really beautiful rock, which those who have never touched by hand find it hard to understand. Here we are at the start of the first pitch over Furggen's shoulder, it should be 7a. The last 7a of the route. Obviously, yes, there are some rotten pitches, there are connection pitches between one pillar and the other which obviously are pitches ... typical Matterhorn pitches, therefore of rotten rock. But the more challenging pitches are the pitches… the real rope lenghts
that have to be done, where there are real difficulties, are beautiful and pleasant to climb, the rock is beautiful, so congratulations to the openers above all. Go! Last pitch of 7a. In a project like this, in my opinion, what really matters
is the work of the team. Because you have to play as a team. The individual can make the difficult pitch, but in the end there must be a team effort. How are you?
Well I don't know if it's more tiring to ascend with this fucking Jumar or to climb. In my opinion
the Jumar win. The skill of the individual certainly counts, because having a strong top climber like François can be or Francesco can be, certainly allows you to have the peace of mind to say, oh well the 7b 7c will be climbed by Francesco or François and we climb in some way. Maybe I wouldn't be able. The fact of being such a close-knit team in my opinion is the success factor of this climb, of every climb. The hard life of the Big Wall! The individual sends the pitch etc. but then there is all the work behind it carrying the weights, organizing the bivouacs, organizing the logistics
so that the ropes do not get stuck, do not tangle ... We had the advantage of being a team where we know each other very well by now. We did a lot of climbs together, the harmony was consolidated, so we already knew even before leaving that we would have a good time
and worked well together. Emrik clips in, safety first Yes, safety! The last pitch of 6b then a 6a two fifths and we are up. Hope so! The most beautiful moment was certainly the last few pitches, when we saw the Furggen ridge, the end of the Furggen ridge, there I was just starting to get more and more excited
because I could see the top. I saw that our project was finally real. You still manage to go and not give up, and when you come to realize such a thing, the emotions are so many. Above all personal satisfaction, to reach the top by such a route, never repeated, first winter ascent, really super! The awareness of having managed to do something, a little different from what we have always done in recent years, therefore more of a Big Wall style climb, perhaps in a slower, more cumbersome style, but still managing to be effective, so on the one hand there was the harmony of the group, on the other hand there was also a personal research in trying to refine certain techniques that maybe we didn't know very well. Ehhh in the end you really enjoy it! to put it bluntly. I take home a new experience,
on a mountain I know very well, on my mountain, my home mountain. An experience different from all the ones I've had so far and I take home three beautiful days of mountaineering
with three great friends. We got tired, but I have to say that we reached the top at five pm, we did a little brain storming and we said: "rather than sleep in the hut in the cold we go down". And in four hours we were here eating pasta. Is the race over?
The race is over. Good evening are you OK? Good evening everyone,
Good evening are you OK? Hi Luke
Come on! God, it was hard How's it going son, all right? No no no, don't squeeze my fingers because I hurt all over! Do you want a beer? Maybe also two three four five
What do you say? One for me please ... Good job guys ehh, good Emrik! .. weee ...
very good! Great John!
ohh la la .. Ehh what a hard job ohh, a nice but tough adventure! Really hard but it was cool, we did a real winter ascent! It was cold and it was good, very good. Fuck that was long, oh!
How long, huh! really long! Everything went according to plan, apart from two or three little things, but all according to plan. Ahh what is mountaineering? it's going with joy through the mountain for good reasons, with companions, friends and experiencing something beautiful, strong, risky too, but which allows you to build yourself up and
recharge your batteries in your life. And that's why I love mountaineering so much. Space will always be there as long as mountaineers have fantasy, space will end when mountaineers run out of fantasy. So yes, there is still space on the Matterhorn. The thrill of leaving a small signature, a small contribution to the mountaineering history of the mountain is enormous. Well ... the satisfaction of leaving a signature, let's say something done by you in the mountains of your home, always has a particular meaning, because it has that extra value which is that every time you raise your head and look at the Matterhorn, but you also see the other mountains of home
and you say "I have been there, I did it!" and this thing here comes back to your mind more often
and maybe you enjoy it more. It is not easier, it is no longer like 100 years ago when whatever ridge you climbed was a first ascent, now you have to do things well, and find the right line. For these things you certainly need good conditions and knowing how to grasp them at the right time. Eh, it is not so easy to talk about all this,
because I have followed him for a while, as long as I was able to, then afterwards these are things that in my opinion it is not easy to go and face the difficulties they face in the mountains and it is not easy to get involved how they get involved. The Matterhorn is our home mountain, but François succeeded and things came out pretty well all over the place. This means that you feel in tune with the mountain where the mountain is. And this in my opinion is a huge added value. They are very good and it is really great for old people like us to see that there are young people who are busy, who carry on the Guide Company, the activity of mountain guides. It is a very pleasant thing! With François in particular, I have a somewhat friendlier relationship perhaps than with the others because I have spent more time with him. Like so many times on all mountains,
then in this specific way, the Matterhorn, sometimes things are seen, but not observed. It was a surprise for me seeing the resolution that these guys found in order to complete this route, it was a great surprise. So I opened my eyes at the age of 70, opened them better
and still keep them open. I keep coming back willingly, maybe it is that every time I arrive at the top I feel something different, maybe it is that seeing the cross I still get excited, and maybe it is the fact that it satisfies me in the same way
to reach the top of the cross as last week with my partners, with a big bag on my shoulders
after having made a big route, like guiding somone, a customer to the top of the Matterhorn
and seeing him drop the tear. Even that satisfies me in the same way,
I get excited in the same way. And this is perhaps what pushes me to continue on my journey of exploration on the mountain of my home.
