The Pillar of E.Montagna - Il Pilastro di Montagna

Pilastro E.Montagna - May 2016

"Nomen omen" say latins: "in the Name there is the Destiny"

Euro Montagna has been a strong Italian mountaineer that during the central part of the 20th century opened many routes in the Apuan Region. Together with his friends Angelo Nerli and Attilio Sabbadini he wrote the 'popular' book: "Alpi Apuane", better known as "The Bible".

Today the "Pilastro di Montagna" is not a very repeated route, and people think that Montagna (Mountain in Italian) is because you climb the pillar of a mountain..that is also true but..
 You may can ask why someone still want to climb on an old classic route in Apuans, where the approach is long and dangerous, where the rock is dirty, the pitons quit old and unreliable...where the difficulties are not so high. You begin to ask yourself whether is the sense, especially in a World dominated be competitiveness and Limit, where neither Poetry nor the Adventure find a place in modern climbing.
It is maybe because the South-Est pillar of the Mt.Pania Secca, in spite of everything, for those who have been in Apuans for years, browsing the yellow pages of the Bible, is exactly this: something still containing the flavour of Adventure.
 
You are a climber, thus you can't declare the irritability of the night before, the few hours of sleep entangled by images and thoughts. The alarm ring only once, we are up; the Moon is huge tonight: 3:40 am, let go.
During the reserved breakfast we do not speak of about the thousand of information asked, about the maps in out pockets. We are in front of the trail that will lead us to the pass.

After few doubts we finally get the pass: there the Pillar. It is a bit scaring, like scaring are the steep meadows, without trails, that we have to descend.
We are proceeding step by step; one of us lose the attention, then the foot: a really bad fall risked to compromise the day (e perhaps even something more).

Finally at the base of the pillar.
The first pitch has been smooth, even if in some report is graded as a VI- (UIAA scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)). The day is wonderful and we are in one of the most amazing scenario of the Apuans.

The climb proceed with other four quit challenging pitches of delicate rock (IV/V).
Then three really "Apuanic" pitches, that have led us to the real wall of the Mt. Pania. On out left side the "Gialunga" crest..that is really endless

Here the real climbing start again, with pitches of IV to V+. After the last aerial step we finally get the peak. 

We were not alone: the swallows are flying over our head. In the sunset light the chats are sober, quit...They have been twelve hours of mountaineering, flown in one second.

Finally, we found the answer to our initial question...

The World that's ignoring you

Tac, tac, tac...the rhythmic sound of the poles on the trail.
Your destination is watching you 2000m over your head; no, you are looking 2000m over your head, full of     thoughts, fighting with your scares.
The first day of the ascent goes along a wonderful valley, full of epic names: Petites Jorasses, Punta Isabella, Aiguille de Triolet...
We are here to realize a pretty easy ascent. These will be the last chances to climb a glacier in south of Europe: the smooth, empty, walls of the valley indicate quite clearly where the glacier was used to stay.
Finally the bivoauc appears against the sky. Into the small, wooden room other three people. One of them lifts the face, just to count with how many people he will have to share the night.
I say:- ciao. two of the three reply.
There is almost no free space in the bivoauc, but it sounds decisively empty.
4:00 am, it is time to go. In the dark sky some star is still falling.
The glacier conditions are wonderful, the ascent lasts more than 3 hours. The final part of the route has been complex because of the snow texture, thus we decide to rappel from another face. It is not easy to find the proper rock, put your dear lanyard, look the sky and than start the descent.
Rappel, than rappel again; you always put a lot of attention in searching a reliable stone for the operation and you always forget to find a comfort solution where waiting the minutes needed by your partner to go down.
And in the silent, sudden, the sound of a violent collision. Over your head (bad, bad instinct to watch up) a big stone is rolling toward you. Your hands over the back of your neck, your face on the rock in front of you. For one second you heart literally stop. Another big crash, than smaller rocks bouncing around you.
This time, too was not the right one.
Above you two other Alpinists are moving. You shout bad words, to let them know that you exist, and that you would like to continue to exist.
After some minutes they pass close to you - Entschuldigung (sorry). - It happens, but please cry out something! A rock so unexpected, it has been scary!
They saw us for sure, but they did say nothing to warn us; they simply ignored us.
I don't think people who practice mountaineering are better or worse than other, I simply thought that sharing a passion could be a way to let empathy easier.
Sometimes it's not.

Why and how

Orange piton would like to be a collage of feelings and thoughts around the experiences carried out in Mountain.

Practising mountaineering is often like to be into a huge metaphor of life...and some experience you get back from it can be applied in a wider range of fields.

Here my Zen and the art of crampons maintenance.

Have a nice reading.