Piolet d'Or XVII suspended

The cancellation of the event was announced by the French Montagnes Magazine, the co-founder of the Piolet d'Or along with the Groupe de Haute Montagne (GHM), as follows: "The Organizers of the Piolet d’Or have dedicated all their efforts in order to give this international celebration of great alpinism the widest possible international support. A Charter has been presented, defining more clearly the selection criteria. It has gathered a great endorsement and in the future it will be possible to further improve it. Since it has not been possible to obtain everybody’s agreement on time and to be succesful in 2009, the Organizers have decided not to organize the 17th Piolet d’Or 2008 concerning 2007 ascents."

As many will remember the prestigious mountaineering award should have crossed the French border for the first time ever this year to be celebrated in Italy's Valle d'Aosta, where it would have been organised by both the region and the co-founders of the Piolet. Past conditional, because the event will not take place. There will be no evening celebration which, as usual, would have united and introduced certainly not all but definitely many of last season's prime mountaineers. There will be no ascent defined as the "best" by the Jury, and not even an ascent which receives the so-called people's award. And there will not be, at least this year, any discussions (and controversy) which has always accompanied, not only in mountaineering, this sort of event.

Careful analysis reveals that controversy is inevitable because - as we have often written on this "screen" - giving an award to one single best ascent in mountaineering is almost a contradiction in terms. It's almost too trivial to be repeated: all mountaineers and all ascents are the best, above all if one considers the extremely high standard of the candidates and the "winners" who in the last 16 years have participated in the Piolet d'Or.

On the other hand mountaineering, as has often been stated, is not a competition (or at least, officially it isn't we would like to add). But at this point one must argue that film or book awards are not competitions either, but nevertheless they are all accompanied by their various Oscar celebrations, Pulitzer etc which in turn are regularly accompanied (tu quoque?) by "healthy" discussions and heated controversy.

One must add that mountaineering (and it is perhaps through this that it "distinguishes" itself) has always seemed a world apart, serious and ethical to the point of being excessively so. Is it for this reason that mountaineering does not accept (apparently?) any compromise or comparisons? Perhaps it is because of this that mountaineering, to "outsiders" eyes, appears if not genetically devoid of healthy self-irony, then lacking a certain "playfulness". Is this a sign of mountaineers' incapacity, once back in the horizontal world, to confront themselves with small, and at the end of the day relative, problems such as an Award?

But without wanting to analyse the questions of the Two Chief World Systems and going right to the point. It's clear that the Piolet d'Or is certainly not the absolute. It can be criticised and one can even not accept it. One can turn it down and refuse to go for example, as Salvaterra, Garibotti and Beltrami did in 2006. But one cannot deny the fact that it is an occasion to talk and talk about, to see and show great mountaineering. And, at the same time, it is an opportunity to discuss and perhaps even to attempt to understand where mountaineering is heading in this third millennium.

Let's now return to the reasons for which the event has been suspended. After last edition's disagreements between Montagnes Magazine and the GHM (which for the first time evet did not take part in the event), and perhaps also after the highly critical assertions by Marko Prezelj (winner of the last Piolet d’Or together with Boris Lorencic), this year the organisers had proposed a "Charter" which explained the selection criteria and the "ethical" values on which the Award was to be based. But since "it has not been possible to obtain everybody's agreement on time", the 17th Piolet d'Or has been suspended and will not take place.

OK. Nothing will change: mountaineering will always be great, even without the Piolet, and it will always be fuelled by the same driving passion. The great ascents and the great mountaineers won't miss out on anything. But it's a shame nevertheless. With all its limits and defects, this Award was an opportunity to display the "beautiful and insane" passion of (always high and difficult) mountain climbing. There will no doubt be other occasions ;-)