Walter Bonatti remains one of the defining figures of twentieth-century alpinism. This book records the years in which that legend was forged.
Why write about this book now? Even I cannot clearly explain the reason. To say simply that I felt like reading it and happened to have the time sounds too shallow. Yet to claim that his death, nearly ten years ago, had remained in my mind all this time does not feel entirely true either.
At any rate, these are the thoughts I had long meant to set down someday.
I had tucked an old magazine clipping inside the back cover. Looking at it now, I find the note: September 13, 2011 — died at the age of 81, of pancreatic cancer.
Bonatti’s years as an active climber were, in fact, surprisingly brief. They stretched from the ascent of the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses in 1949, when he was nineteen, to the winter solo ascent of the North Face of the Matterhorn in 1966, when he was thirty-six. Less than twenty years in all. This book covers those years up to the tragic events on the Central Pillar of Frêney in 1961.
To climbers of an older generation, Bonatti may seem not merely a legend but an almost mythical figure. To younger mountaineers, he may be little more than a name from the past—or even, “Who was that?”
The Great Climbs
The book consists of seventeen chapters, each recounting either a groundbreaking ascent at the frontier of its age or a climb carried to the very edge of disaster. Several of them are not merely great stories, but episodes that helped shape the history of mountaineering itself.
The narrative begins with the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses. Bonatti climbs with Andrea Oggioni, his lifelong friend and rope companion. At nineteen, they completed only the third ascent of that immense wall.
The East Face of the Grand Capucin is the magnificent red granite tower rising beyond the Vallée Blanche, seen from the Aiguille du Midi above Chamonix. At twenty-one, after four days of struggle, Bonatti made the first ascent. Yet criticism followed. Because he had retreated the previous year in bad weather, some claimed he had prepared the route in advance, leaving pitons in place and relying excessively on aid.
But to climb such an overhanging wall while removing more than half the pitons, and without using a single bolt, was something almost unimaginable at the time. Bonatti himself wrote that their earlier failure, caused only by the storm, should have been seen as an unfortunate attempt already within reach of victory.
At twenty-four, the youngest member of the team, he was chosen for the Italian expedition to K2. Italy was determined not to lag behind Britain and France in the race for Himalayan success.
For the final summit push, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli remained at the highest camp. Bonatti and the porter Mahdi carried oxygen cylinders upward to them. But the summit pair had pitched their tent higher than the agreed point and, after sunset, gave no clear signal of their location. They merely shouted for the cylinders to be left there and for Bonatti to descend. With no further response, Bonatti and Mahdi were forced to bivouac in the open above 8,000 meters with only the clothes they wore.
Later, Bonatti was accused of trying to steal the summit for himself and of using the oxygen without permission. He spent decades fighting to restore his honor. Only in 2004—fully fifty years later—did the Italian Alpine Club officially revise its account after Lacedelli admitted the earlier version had been false.
Wounded deeply by K2, Bonatti answered in 1955 with his ferocious six-day solo ascent of the Southwest Pillar of the Dru. Though not stated directly in this book, he later described it as “a kind of redemption after K2. A protest.”
Using his distinctive Z-system self-belay, he climbed each pitch, then repeatedly descended and re-ascended to haul equipment. His food was ruined when alcohol fuel leaked. He smashed his fingers bloody with the hammer. Night after night he bivouacked alone.
On the fifth day he was stopped by an overhang he could not pass. There he tied a knot in the rope’s end, cast it like a lasso over a rock projection, and launched himself into the void in a pendulum traverse. Repeating such maneuvers, he finally overcame the overhangs. On the sixth day he rejoined the normal route and met Professor Cesare and others who had climbed up in support.
Later he made numerous ascents on the southeast side of Mont Blanc, including several first ascents: the Peuterey Ridge, the Red Pillar of Brouillard, the Brenva side ridge, the Poire Route, the Major Route, and finally the tragic Central Pillar of Frêney, which forms the last chapter of this book.
Between these, he also recounts the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV under the leadership of Riccardo Cassin and climbs in the Patagonian Andes. Gasherbrum IV, a formidable peak nearing 8,000 meters, was climbed by Bonatti and Carlo Mauri through advanced aid climbing and Grade V rock climbing. It is often seen as a landmark that foreshadowed the era of harder variations on the great Himalayan peaks.
The Frêney Tragedy
On the Central Pillar of Frêney, Bonatti lost his dearest friend, Andrea Oggioni. It was a plan they had cherished for years. Their three-man team left the Torino Hut and, at the Gamba shelter, met a French team of four led by Mazeaud, who were aiming for the same face. They agreed to join forces.
Crossing the Col de la Fourche and the Col de Peuterey, they reached the ridge. Within twenty-four hours they had climbed two-fifths of it. After a bivouac, progress continued well, and by noon the next day they had reached the base of the final tower. Then suddenly the storm struck.
Thunder, wind, and snow pinned all seven men to a tiny ledge. With only half a day of clear weather they could have reached the summit of Mont Blanc. But after sixty hours the blizzard still showed no sign of ending. At last they chose retreat.
After a long and terrible descent, they endured a fourth bivouac near the Col de Peuterey. By then all were near death. Bonatti, still the strongest, took the lead, fixing the route across the dangerous rocks of the Gruber passage toward the Gamba Hut. One by one they collapsed. Vieille fell. Guillaume fell. Oggioni too died before reaching the Col de l’Innominata. Kohlmann became half-mad and collapsed. Bonatti and Gallieni reached the hut to summon rescue; Mazeaud was saved, but the others perished.
“I fell into a state of deep numbness. When I awoke, three hours had passed. One by one the bodies of my companions were recovered, except for Vieille. ‘Oggioni is dead…’ At those words an unbearable grief tightened around my chest. Mazeaud, the only other survivor found by the rescue party, embraced me, and we wept together.”
With these words, the book ends. Even in this tragedy, newspapers wrote as though Bonatti alone had saved himself.
Farewell to Alpinism
Afterward he went on to make more astonishing ascents: the first ascent of the North Face of the Peuterey Grand Pilier, the first winter ascent of the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses, and more. Yet after his winter solo ascent of the Matterhorn North Face, he turned decisively away from the world of extreme climbing.
Farewell, alpinism!… I had made my decision. I would descend from the mountains. But whether I would remain in the valleys was another matter, for high above I had glimpsed another vast horizon.
Final Thoughts
Few men have suffered so much criticism and slander for actions so different from what they intended. Perhaps the shadow of K2 followed him always. Or perhaps, because he was physically stronger and mentally harder in the mountains than others—because he survived when others fell—there arose suspicion, envy, and resentment. Perhaps this was the sorrow of a man who had gone beyond his age.
It is often said that a person’s true judgment is settled only after the coffin is closed. Yet Bonatti’s reputation does not seem destined to fade. If anything, it continues to rise, as one of the great legends of twentieth-century alpinism.
Without K2, perhaps he might have enjoyed a longer and steadier career. Yet perhaps it was precisely because of that wound that he burned with such explosive brilliance, pushing beyond ordinary human limits.
Even this book may partly have been written to defend his innocence against public criticism and misunderstanding. And yet I wish it could be read apart from all those controversies, simply as the pure expression of his passion for the mountains and the greatness of his deeds.
Still, one cannot help reading while aware of all the surrounding noise. That, somehow, feels regrettable. Perhaps it is only the vulgar curiosity of the reader that makes it so.
English version prepared with AI assistance
(Originally published in Japanese)
Japanese version:
https://higuka-otibohiroi.net/ワルテル・ボナッティ わが山々へ/