Siula Grande in Peru the new objective for Matteo Della Bordella and Italian High Mountain Military Corps

Italian mountaineer Matteo Della Bordella set off a few days ago on a new adventure: the east face of Siula Grande. This is the first expedition for the member of the Ragni di Lecco club with his fellow High Mountain Military Corps alpinists.

Siula Grande is one of the most famous mountains in Peru and certainly the one the strikes a cord most within the mountaineering world. 6344m tall and located in the Cordillera Huayhuash, Siula Grande was the scene of the epic descent carried out by Joe Simpson and Simon Yates after having successfully breached the unclimbed West Face. Their story is wonderfully narrated in the famous book Touching the Void.

Della Bordella, together with his climbing partners Alessandro Zeni, Marco Majori, Filip Babicz and Stefano Cordaro, is heading for the opposite wall, the east face. “It’s a beautiful shield of rock, steep and challenging with extreme technical difficulties in a very difficult mountain environment" explained Della Bordella, who in 2017 had already attempted the face. "It’s definitely complex, with a problematic approach across the glacier, at altitude. In short, it’s got all the ingredients for a real challenge!"

The idea of ​​climbing the east face came about a few years ago with Matteo Bernasconi and Tito Arosio. "Now it's time to try the mountain again, hopefully we’ll be better prepared for this great challenge and hopefully this time the mountain will let us pass".

A few months after the ascent of Brothers in Arms on Cerro Torre in Patagonia with Matteo De Zaiacomo and David Bacci, few expected a new expedition of this magnitude "For me it is important to have found a new goal, with such a motivated team" explained Della Bordella.