An evening of mountaineering: mountain guides and clients on the Great Classics

The legendary mountain guides portrayed in literature and film are created on the meeting of two contrasting cultures: the virtues of mountain folk, wise keepers of local knowledge, and the shortcomings of city dwellers who dream of scaling the highest peaks. In reality, the history of mountaineering tells of guides who at times climbed with people who outdid them in strength, yet they always lacked the knowledge and intuition that came with the territory.
In the last few decades of the twentieth century, the differences between mountain guides and their city clients became keener as the profession evolved towards specialisation, mobility and mountaineering outside Europe. As it is nowadays impossible to excel in all fields, even mountain guides have chosen to specialise in the discipline most suited to their physical strengths and knowledge, disciplines such as mountaineering, climbing, ski-mountaineering, trekking, and expeditions. As time has passed, mountain guides, as well as some clients, have become more skilled, enabling the most talented to venture repeatedly along perilous routes in the Alps and to scale the Himalayas or the Patagonia mountains of Gasherbrum and Fitz Roy. History, however, repeats itself. Angelo Dibona opened up extreme routes with his clients at the beginning of the twentieth century, and great guides, such as Gaston Rébuffat and Giorgio Bertone, did the same after the Second World War. When the skills of mountaineering and the skills of its professionals combine, they create a golden age for mountain guides.

Hanspeter Eisendle was born in Vipiteno in 1956. He has been a mountain guide since 1980. After he had taken part in a Messner expedition on the treacherous South Face of Cho Oyu (8200 m) in his first winter ascent of an Eight Thousander, in 1982 he decided to become a full-time mountain guide. He went back along all of the major routes through the Dolomites (of which there are about 1500) and some routes through the Western Alps (including the Cresta Peuterey on Mont Blanc, the East Face of Monte Rosa, and three routes on the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc); he has completed 26 first ascents on rock and ice.After a failed expedition to Dhaulagiri (8167 m), Eisendle concentrated more on rock-climbing, a discipline that was looking for new horizons at that time. In competitive climbing, he has climbed routes up to Grade 10 and up to Grade 8+ (7b) on Alpine routes with no expansion bolts.. He did an enchainment of the North Face of Ortles and the North Face of Cima Grande di Lavaredo (Via Comici) in 24 hours. The 240-kilometre journey between the two most famous faces in South Tyrol was made by bicycle. As a mountain guide, he sometimes organises trips to the Himalayas for small groups (excursions on easy peaks up to 6000 m). This trips illustrate his passion for classic mountaineering by fair means, where contact with the mountain and its dangers is more important than any results that may be achieved.

Erhard Loretan (born in 1959) is a Swiss mountain climber. He was born in Bullein the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. He is trained as a cabinet-maker (1979) and mountain guide (1981) and began his climbing career at the age of 11. He is widely considered by many one of the greatest climbers ever, with the top three (Messner, Kukuczka, and Loretan) far above any climber today. Erhard Loretan completed the fourteen 8000 meter summits in 13 years (1982/95) at age 36. Highlights include Nanga Parbat by the Diamir side, Manaslu by the north-west ridge, Traverse of Annapurna with Robert Joss, Everest in 39 hours with Jean Troillet, the first winter ascent of the east side of Dhaulagiri and more. He still lives in Bulle and mainly works as mountain guide. Sailing is becoming his new passion. When he is not in the mountains you can find him on a boat around Capo Horn….

Marco Furlani was born in Trento in 1956; he started climbing at a young age in the numerous gyms in Povo, a suburb of Trento. His heroes are Cesare Maestri and Marino Stenico; the latter taught him the basics of climbing. He climbed in Paganella and then in the Dolomites with a number of partners, first on easy routes and then on increasingly difficult ones, including the Via delle Guide in Crozzon di Brenta when he was sixteen, as well as the Cassin and Comici routes in Lavaredo when he was seventeen. He has a romantic vision of climbing, one that is still rooted in tradition; he climbs in complete freedom without letting himself be conditioned by the stress of performing, which may be the secret to his long career. Over the last thirty years, he has repeated about 2000 routes, completed about 100 first repeats, 10 first national repeats and 20 first winter ascents. The discipline he loves most is exploring and opening up new routes; he has opened about 50 in the Dolomites, Valle del Sarca and the Tatra Mountains, Slovakia. In 1979 he was one of the first Italians to realise that mountaineering was about to undergo major changes, so he went to the Yosemite Park, California, USA, with three fellow climbers where he experimented with the new techniques and philosophies that would later take European mountaineering by storm. He put everything he learnt to good effect in the Dolomites and Valle del Sarca. In 1980 he became the youngest person to become an Accademico, one of an elite group of mountaineers in the Italian Alpine Club (CAI). In 1983, he received the other two highest European honours: the equivalent of Accademico in Austria and France’s Groupe de Haute Montagne (GHM) award. In 1987 he received his mountain-guide licence, and he is currently a professional mountain guide. He has been a mountain guide since 1987. He published Arrampicate in Dolomiti (Cierre) in 1995 and his autobiography Ampio Respiro (Nuovi Sentieri) in 2006.

Marcello Cominetti was born in Genoa, Italy, on 30 May 1961. He began to visit the mountains as a child and had his first experience of mountaineering when he was sixteen. Immediately fascinated by this world, he began to make older friends who had experience of the mountains so that he could learn as much as possible. In 1984, he decided to move to a beautiful valley in the Dolomites. At twenty-three, he became a mountain guide and started to make a living from his newfound profession straight away, combining it with other mountain-related jobs.  He was also an instructor on mountain-guide courses for ten years. In the mid 1990s, he and his colleagues set up a small organisation that offered traditional mountain-guide activities, as well as trips, trekking and expeditions through mountain ranges across the world. He left the organisation last year so that he could concentrate on his work as a mountain guide, amongst other things. Nowadays he divides his time between his children, climbing, skiing, travelling and exploring remote areas

During the evening, the Alliance Prize will be awarded to Hans Jürgen Panitz

Hans Jürgen Panitz was born in Ludwigshafen, on the Rhine, in Germany. On leaving high-school, he worked at Bavarian broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk until 1965, buying programmes and dealing with international relations. Since 1968, he has been a producer, director and writer for Omega Film and has also bought and sold films and television rights. He met Luis Trenker in 1970. Panitz dealt with the promotion of the great German director’s film and television work until Trenker died. Panitz and Rudolf Nottebohm made a biography on Trenker entitled Fast ein Jahrhundert; in 1989 Panitz presented a film on the life of mountain-film pioneer Arnold Fanck entitled Wer war Arnold Fanck. He also took part in the 1996 TrentoFilmfestival with Luis Trenker Project: I am a Movieman, and in 1999 with the films Matterhorn - Das ist der Gipfel and In Eis und Schnee.