Giusto Gervasutti

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Giusto Gervasutti (born April 17, 1909 in Cervignano del Friuli , † September 16, 1946 at Mont Blanc du Tacul ) was an Italian mountaineer who is counted among the world's best alpinists of his time.

Gervasutti grew up in Friuli , Italy , and laid the foundation stone for his extraordinary mountaineering career with hikes in the Carnic Alps . In the mountains of the Dolomites he developed into a high-performance rock climber who soon felt the need for new goals. In 1931 Gervasutti settled in Turin , from where his activities shifted to the high mountains and mountain ranges of the Western Alps. Here he matured into a complete mountaineer who was also at home in granite, ice and combined terrain. In doing so, he overcame the contrasts that had previously existed between specialized rock climbing in the Dolomites and high alpinism in the western Alps like no other before him. He was equally at home in both regions, but his historical significance is primarily seen in connection with his achievements in the Western Alps. Gervasutti was climbing an esthete, the Turin by his friends, including Gabriele Boccalatte , Renato Chabod and at the age of only 24 years, while descending the Matterhorn crashed Amilcare Cretier , nicknamed Il fortissimo ( the strongest ) was occupied. Its importance for Italian alpinism is sometimes rated higher than that of Riccardo Cassin . Gervasutti, who remained single all his life, obtained the funds necessary for his mountain trips through the publishing house Il Verdone ; during the war he made a living doing various jobs.

Alpinistic achievements

Giusto Gervasutti was one of the participants in the struggle over the last problems of the Alps . He and Renato Chabod climbed the Croz pillar in the north face of the 4,208  m high Grandes Jorasses in the Mont Blanc massif on July 1st and 2nd, 1935 (2nd ascent), just two days after the successful rope team of Martin Meier and Rudolf Peters . His autobiography, published under the title Scalate Nelle Alpi , reveals at best regret, but no obvious bitterness, that he could not win the competition on the Jorasses, as well as on the Eiger .

Gervasutti made the toughest trips in the Alps, although he was not the first to be successful on the major routes in the limelight. In addition to many new tours, he also made repetitions of the most difficult climbs:

  • With Piero Zanetti , Giusto Gervasutti managed the first repetition of the south ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey in 1933 . The difficulties in these almost 50 pitches are up to V on the UIAA scale or TD on the alpine tour scale .
  • Gervasutti climbed the north-west face of the 3564  m high Olan in the Haut Dauphiné on 23 and 24 August 1934 with the Frenchman Lucien Devies , who also became known as an alpine functionary (1st ascent of the 1000-meter wall with difficulty VI / TD). With this route, the first major West Alps tour in the VI. Difficulty level mastered.
  • The same rope team was successful a year later on August 30 and 31, 1935 on the south-southeast ridge of the Pic Gaspard (1st ascent, V + / TD).
Topo of the Devies-Gervasutti route through the Ailefroide -NW wall
  • Also with Devies, the first ascent of the Ailefroide north-west face in the Écrins massif was achieved on July 23 and 24, 1936 . The ascent of this almost four-thousand-meter peak on an extreme, new route (VI / A0 / ED) was successful, even though Gervasutti had two broken ribs and three loose teeth in an accident in easy terrain.
  • With Gabriele Boccalatte, Gervasutti was the first to climb the southwest pillar of the Pointe Gugliermina ( 3893  m ) in the Mont Blanc massif (VI− / A1 and A0 / TD +) on August 17 and 18, 1938 .
  • Together with Lucien Devies, Giusto Gervasutti managed the third ascent of the Alain Leiniger route through the north face of the Petit Dru (V + / A0 / TD−) on August 4th and 5th .
  • On August 13, 1940 Gervasutti ascended together with Paolo Bollini the Mont Blanc via a new route (VI / A1 / TD +). The right of the three Frêneyppeiler, over which the ascent took place, was later named "Gervasuttippeiler".
  • With the first ascent of the east face of the Grandes Jorasses, Gervasutti made his alpine masterpiece with Giuseppe Gagliardone on August 16 and 17, 1942 (VI + / A2 / ED). This route remained the most demanding climb in the Mont Blanc massif until the 1950s.

In 1934 he took part in an Italian expedition to the Andes . As part of this venture, Gervasutti and L. Binaghi were able to climb the Cerro Campione d'Italia and the Picco Littorio , two previously nameless five-thousanders. The mountaineering value of the expedition was rather low.

Death on Mont Blanc du Tacul

The Gervasutti pillar on Mont Blanc du Tacul is the second pillar to the left of the center of the picture. On the right the striking Gervasutti Couloir .

On September 16, 1946, Giusto Gervasutti had a fatal accident while retreating from the northeast spur of Mont Blanc du Tacul (the pillar was later named after him) as a result of a rappelling accident. His last rope partner, Giuseppe Gagliardone, was able to save himself, but still survived him by less than a year. Gagliardone was killed while climbing the south ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey on July 6, 1947. The first ascent of the Gervasutti pillar was only possible five years after Gervasutti's death on July 29 and 30, 1951 by Piero Fornelli and Giovanni Mauro.

In addition to the two Gervasutticouloirs on the Frêney flank of Mont Blanc and on Mont Blanc du Tacul, the Gervasutticouloir , also on Mont Blanc du Tacul, which he climbed with Renato Chabod on August 13, 1934, is reminiscent of the great Italian mountaineer Giusto Gervasutti. In addition, two bivouac boxes known as Bivacco Giusto Gervasutti in the Mont Blanc massif and in the Carnic Alps bear his name.

literature

  • Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg , Munich 1992. With a foreword by Gervasutti's rope partner Lucien Devies and a portrait of the translator Martin Lutterjohann. Published by the German Alpine Association . ISBN 3763410295 . Title of the original Italian edition: Scalate Nelle Alpi . An expanded new edition in Italian from 1985 is entitled Il Fortissimo .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg , Munich 1992, page 15.
  2. ↑ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, pages 20 and 113.
  3. ↑ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, pages 15 and 18.
  4. ^ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, page 16.
  5. ^ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, pages 17 and 18.
  6. ↑ Gervasutti's two attempts at the Croz pillar in the north face of Jorasses with Zanetti in 1933 and Chabod in 1934 had previously failed.
  7. ↑ During the second ascent of the Croz pillar, Gervasutti and Chabod teamed up in a thunderstorm with the Swiss Loulou Boulaz and her guide Raymond Lambert to form a four-person rope team (Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, page 187.) . The presence of a woman is said to have devalued the tour for Gervasutti and Chabod, cf. Book presentation »Race for the Great North Walls«. Retrieved December 30, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Published in German by the DAV under the title Bergfahrten 1992 by Verlag J. Berg ( ISBN 3763410295 ), cf. Bibliography.
  9. ↑ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, page 17.
  10. ↑ Hartmut Eberlein, Dauphiné area guide , Bergverlag Rother , Munich 1988, page 257 ( ISBN 3763334149 ).
  11. ↑ Hartmut Eberlein, Area Leader Mont Blanc Group , 9th edition, Bergverlag Rother, Munich 2000, page 304 ( ISBN 3763324143 ).
  12. ^ Giusto Gervasutti, Bergfahrten , Alpine Klassiker Volume 14, Verlag J. Berg, Munich 1992, page 19.
  13. ↑ Stefano Ardito , Montblanc. Conquering a mountain range. , Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 2000 ( ISBN 3860702947 ), page 31.
  14. ↑ Bivacco Giusto Gervasutti al Fréboudze. Retrieved December 30, 2010 .
  15. ^ Bivacco Giusto Gervasutti al Cadin degli Elmi. Retrieved December 30, 2010 .
personal data
SURNAME Gervasutti, Giusto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian alpinist
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Cervignano del Friuli
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1946
Place of death Mont Blanc du Tacul