Loretan and Georges' Imperial Crown, merely the thought inspires

I believe one of the greatest expressions of mountain climbing is staying up in the mountains as much as possible, trying to capture all the moments of the day, the days, of the night, the nights. And enchainments are the essence of all this!

One pitch, two pitches, one hundred pitches. One hour, two hours, one hundred hours… Fully experiencing dawn to dusk, searching for that age-old quest, the limit. Lungs explode, arms are in pain, and you’re devoid of external thoughts, all that remains is the internal reasoning, thinking about being there at a hundred, a thousand miles an hour!

In the history of man and mountains, enchainments have always existed, long and short, across rock and ice, via long ridges and aretes ... How can we not mention talented Belgian alpinist Claudio Barbier and his "day" on the summits of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo in the early sixties, or the inventor of the modern enchainments, Nicolas Jaeger, who in 1975 climbed in swift succession the Grand Pilier d'Angle and the Central Pillar of Freney.

And then there are Boivin, Profit, Berhault, Cominetti, Dumarest and Borgnet ... and many, many others who’ve formed part pf the "history" with their enchainments, some long some short, all beautiful and the result of meticulous training and marvelous ideas.

1986 Winter, plenty of snow and unstable weather, cold, an idea came to life in many a mind and was put into practice: two of the strongest alpinists of the day, the Swiss i André Georges ed Erhard Loretan, succeeded after nineteen days of effort in enchaining thirty-eight peaks in the Valais, of which thirty are over 4000 meters!

Nineteen days in winter without ever descending below 3000 meters. In his compelling book "The roaring 8,000ers" Loretan describes those days with utmost simplicity: a huge effort but also a huge Friendship... At times I try to imagine those days, but my imagination always stops with a question mark, I fail to go beyond, it’s simply too cold, too difficult, too demanding! I browse through the newspaper cutouts of the climb, the climbs, seeing that an enchainment of this magnitude involved climbing, descending and climbing each difficult peak individually… and in winter!

I think their "race" raised the bar for the dreams of many, many climbers. I also believe that everyone has their own personal enchainment in mind, solo or in the company of others. I hope everyone will manage to carry these out in the best of all possible ways, just as was done by these two great alpinists, two formidable friends.

Happy climbing... I reckon!

by Ivo Ferrari




29/04/2011 - Erhard Loretan, good-bye to a great alpinist
On Thursday 28 April Swiss alpinist and mountain guide Erhard Loretan died in a climbing accident while ascending Grünhorn in the Bernse Alps. Loretan was one of the greatest alpinists of the modern era, the third person to have climbed all fourteen 8000m peaks and the second to do so without supplementary oxygen.