Versante Sud Boomer Rock climbing autobiography

Versante Sud Boomer Rock is a long narrative, partly personal and partly not, about both society and the world of climbing. A story that unfolds throughout almost the entire second half of the twentieth century and ends with the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

It is the autobiography of an average climber, born in 1959 and thus belonging to the generation defined as the "baby boom". It is the story of someone who has personally experienced both the numerous and radical political, ethical, economic, and technological changes in Italian society, as well as the no less numerous and radical technical and cultural changes that occurred within the world of mountaineering and climbing in the second half of the last century.

It is not the account of a single experience, but of a hundred, a thousand, infinite experiences likely common to many. A passion, in this specific case, not inherited from family, but born in a completely spontaneous and instinctive manner and indeed strongly opposed in the family context. A gradual discovery, with intimate implications, that has transformed over time into a profession. Not as a mountain guide, but as a journalist and writer of places, itineraries, events, and characters related to the mountain and, more generally, to the world of verticality.

To give an original tone to this narrative, the author wanted to include, corresponding to some key periods of his life, the testimony of his father. The other bell, so to speak, or, if we want, the voice of his Super-ego always in conflict with the Id. His considerations and reflections, sometimes surprised and sometimes almost embarrassed, I believe reflect the reality of the relationship between parents and children: an uninterrupted, astonishing, bittersweet discovery.

Eugenio Maria Cipriani, born in 1959, is a journalist, writer, and passionate lover of the mountain and nature in all their manifestations. Throughout his "vertical career," now approaching half a century of history, he has met and frequented countless representatives of the mountaineering world and has produced around sixty publications of various kinds, some of which are related to the world of the mountain. In terms of mountaineering, he has practiced and continues to practice predominantly exploratory climbing, which has led him to achieve almost nine hundred new ascents from the northeastern Alps to Greece, passing through the Prealps, the Dolomites (including the Lucanian ones), the Carnic Alps, the Julian Alps, and the Balkans.