Idea Montagna Great Ridge Routes Of The Alps mountaineering guide

Idea Montagna Great Ridge Routes Of The Alps: The orography of the world, if you think about it, has always influenced man in the division of states, peoples, and religions. Man has taken rock and water as a pretext to assert his sovereignty over a territory. Ridges, peaks, just like rivers, have always created divisions. I on one side, you on the other. But there are men who follow that sign of division, those who navigate it and those who climb it, connecting two points and being able to observe closely or from above those two different worlds, recognizing their differences and interpreting their affinities. While the navigator descends towards the sea, the mountaineer, going in the opposite direction, aims for the summit of a mountain starting from the bottom, conquering that world suspended between two worlds. Both the navigator and the mountaineer, perhaps unconsciously, are bearers of peace, uniting, even just with their gaze, those two sides, giving both the same dignity, despite their diversity. The high mountain ridge is the ultimate expression of division, but those who traverse it have the opportunity to be the ideal symbol of union. Upon reaching the top, at the orographic confluence point of two slopes, the mountaineer meets the man from the other world, different yet similar to him, who, due to an arcane attraction, has climbed the opposite ridge. The ridge competes with the wall for the beauty of the mountain. On the wall, you are protected but exposed to rock and ice falls; on the ridge, you are exposed to the abyss but protected by the will of the mountain. Two worlds in the mirror, where one ends, the other begins.
Wall: difficulty, closure, sense of protection.
Ridge: exposure, vision, vertigo.
The meaning of this book is condensed in these last three words. For Marco, the work of a lifetime, the symbol of his mountaineering, a path made of walls but above all of ridges, of these threads of division that condense into a point of union. An enormous, meticulous work, important to give meaning to a life spent among these rocks and these ice (Click here for the Italian version).