As it is well known , things don’t always go as planned . In fact, there is a saying that man plans and God laughs. My wish was to climb the Matterhorn. It’s located between Italy and Switzerland, with the village of Zermatt on the Swiss side and Cervinia on the Italian side. I have seen this mountain for the first time in 1984 when I skied Cervinia. Last year I was supposed to climb it, but unforeseen circumstances prevented it. So here I was this year, ready to climb it. Joe and Jerry decided to join and almost in the last moment Jeff, who actually climbed it last year joined in as well. I flew into Venice 2 days earlier than the rest of the guys, thinking of doing some climbs in the Dolomites. Then Albi told me that he booked the Mittelegi hut, in order to climb the Eiger. However bad weather kicked in, bringing snow and powerful winds. So instead we climbed the Cima Ovest, the West Peak of the 3 Peaks of Lavaredo, the only one that I haven’t climbed yet. Albi checked again the weather forecast, and we thought that we might have a short window of good weather for 2 days to climb Matterhorn, or Cervino as is known in Italian, right after the rest of the guys arrive. We picked them up from Milan airport at Malpensa and drove straight to Cervinia. The plan was to climb the Italian route to the top of the Matterhorn via the Lion’s Ridge and staying at the Carrell rifugio. However because that place offered no food or water, we had to bring it all with us. Albi assembled a team of guides that included Beppe, a 71 year old “Superman”, Checco -a guide in his 50s who actually trained Albi, and Lucca, a 33 year old and relatively new guide. Besides Lucca we have climbed before with the other ones. After stopping at a store to get supplies, we changed into our climbing clothes in the parking lot of the Cervinia’s Gondola. We went up to the top, and hiked to Refugio Oriondé Duca degli Abruzzi at 2, 800 m altitude. However a big thunderstorm at night brought 20cm of snow, so we had to abort the mission. We hiked down went and to Courmayeour. The forecast showed that we had a little window of good weather. Beppe lives in that town and we had a quick picnic in his backyard. We went up to the Torino hut right on the Italian French border on the Mt Blanc massif. The goal was the Dent du Geant, a 4,000m granite tower. I remember seeing it in 2016 when I skied the Valle Blanche below it. I did not know then that people actually climb it and surely I have never imagined that I could ever be on its summit. Next day we woke up at 4 am and started the climb on the glacier with crampons, followed by a serious scramble over the “ gengiva “ of the “ Giant’s Tooth “ and finally climb on the vertical granite face. It was a looong day. After summiting , and rapelling multiple times a long way down followed. We had a quick rest and a beer with chips and after taking the gondola down from the Torino hut to Courmayeour wedrove south to Valdieri, in the Maritime Alps – because the weather was promising. We slept that night in “ Casa Savoia”, located on the old royal hunting grounds, and next morning we hiked to Refugio Redmondino, at 2,500m. Had a nice lunch of charcuterie and anchovies ,and went for single pitch rock climbing where we had a chance to lead climb. The next day we summited Argentere Peak, which at 3,200m is the highest one in the Southern Alps. We climbed the Sigusmundi ridge, a 2.5km razor edge arrete with massive exposure on both sides. After a quick lunch, we continued to the Refugio Bozano, at about 2,500m. The trail, rated advanced, took us over never ending fields of boulders, and required hiking up and down because we had to cross a few mountains over a pass. Got there just in time for dinner. We were housed in the old refugio from1921, a small structure that had 2 huge bunk beds where the 8 of us slept. I named it “ The penthouse “. Next day we climbed “ Corno Stella”, a beautiful 10’pitch rock climb over nice granite. The highlight was a long and very exposed traverse and having multiple rappels in a Patagonian like wind. Once at the Refugio, we dipped into the little ice water bath and had a good meal accompanied by Barbaresco wine. The last day we descended to about 1,500m and drove to Milano, and were dropped at Malpensa airport, where we spent the last night at the Sheraton. So, another great adventure came to an end. The guides were great and brought all of us to the summit(s) and down in one piece. And as far as having to change plans …well – when a door closes an other door opens.
