Introduction
This year, with the #WeCareAbout project whose goal is to support initiatives in which the territory and its representatives are first and foremost, we endorsed the mountaineer from Vicenza, Mario Vielmo. He wanted to make his dream of conquering the 14th highest and last 8000 metres on the planet, the Shisha Pangma, come true.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and someone didn’t make it back.
“Failure in the mountains” Mario confessed “does not happen when one respects the mountain and does not make the mistake of identifying it with only the peak. Failure happens when wanting to arrive first and winning is more important than everything else; that is the moment that the mountain becomes something else, the moment you put your life and that of others in jeopardy.”
We asked Mario to tell us about this latest experience in his own words. The eternal lesson is that real courage goes hand in hand with respect and humility.
Thank you Mario, we are proud to have endorsed you.
The story
A lot of anger: these are the only words I can say and that express what I felt and still feel today.
Anger because the tragedy of the two avalanches that dragged two separate climbing parties, two Nepalese sherpas and their clients could have been avoided.
Anger because four people died in the place where they should have celebrated and rejoiced.
Anger because too often we forget what Mountain means, mountain with a capital “M”, that respects you only if you respect it first.
I can’t find peace of mind, this thought haunts and nags at me. I wonder why this has to happen even here. Bad behaviour that leads to rivalry and consequently competition for a record (in this case it would have been the one of the first American mountaineer to have climbed all 14 of the 8000 metre mountains on the planet).
Competition is obviously human, but ignoring danger and certain aspects regarding safety that compromise even other people’s safety means turning your back on the mountain.
Two days before this terrible loss, Sanu Sherpa and his Japanese client Naoko were climbing from camp one towards camp two. They were climbing the normal route, on a slightly steep slope, when an moderate-sized avalanche occurred. Both the sherpa and his client were swept down for 200 metres, but they were not injured. It was a clear sign that the mountain was giving us information about the conditions of its snow cover; a warning that “should have been heeded”.
At the summit-push on October 6/7, 40 mountaineers of different nationalities, both clients and sherpas, attempted to reach the peak. The day before they had passed where the first avalanche occurred. They had all seen it, but they were all blinded by the frenzy and excitement of reaching the peak.
That day Sebastiano and I were at camp one at 6400 m. We had climbed up to spend two days at a high altitude, a climbed we had planned to manage our acclimatisation.
That same cursed day of the summit push, we went down to the base camp. During the night, the wind had never stopped blowing. It was strong, gusty and shook the apsis enough that we couldn’t sleep. Then, in the morning, after having prepared our backpacks, I noticed huge gusts of wind on the summit of the Shisha Pangma. The wind was blowing from south-west, bringing with it snow to the north-eastern wall (the way up to the peak). Now, the conditions of the mountains were very dangerous and at high risk for avalanches.
No mountaineer in the world can consider themselves an expert at evaluating in normal conditions if there is a risk of avalanches or not, but this time it was different. Faced with the evidence and the first avalanche, the danger could not be ignored. The Mountain had clearly said: “look at me, but don’t touch me”.
I have to say that it was a real dare against nature, a Russian roulette if you will, in the name of “the peak at all costs”.
But the cost, this time, was really too high.
I’m really sad for the victims and I wonder whether they were aware of the risks they were taking. I wonder if there were greater responsibilities by a system created in recent years, a system that looks at the results (more than at the mountain and its universal values).
