Idea Montagna Il Grande Libro Delle Creste mountaineering guide

Idea Montagna Il Grande Libro Delle Creste: The orography of the world, when you think about it, has always influenced man in the division of states, peoples, religions. Man has used rock and water as the best means to assert his sovereignty over a territory. The ridges, the spines, just like rivers, have always created divisions. I on one side, you on the other. But there are men who traverse that line of division, some navigate it and others climb it, connecting two points and being able to look closely or from above at 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 navigator and mountaineer, perhaps unconsciously, are bearers of peace, uniting, even just with their gaze, those two slopes, giving both the same dignity, despite their differences. The high mountain ridge is the ultimate expression of division, but those who traverse it have the opportunity to be the ideal symbol of unity. Upon reaching the summit, the orographic confluence point of two slopes, the mountaineer meets the man from the other world, different yet similar to him, who has traversed the opposite ridge due to an arcane attraction. The ridge competes with the wall for the beauty of the mountain. On the wall, one is protected but exposed to falling rock and ice; on the ridge, one is exposed over the abyss but protected from the mountain's whims. Two worlds in a mirror, where one ends, the other begins.
Wall: difficulty, closure, sense of protection.
Ridge: exposure, vision, vertigo.
These last three words condense the essence of this book. For Marco, it is the work of a lifetime, the symbol of his mountaineering, a journey made of walls but above all of ridges, of these lines of division that condense into a point of union. An immense, meticulous, important work, to give meaning to a life spent among those rocks and those glaciers (click here for the English version).