Climbing Quote of the Week: Giusto Gervasutti

Through the 1930s, Italian mountaineer Giusto Gervasutti was simply one of the boldest and most skilled alpinists in the world. Born in 1909, he learned to rock climb on the big walls of the Dolomites in northern Italy. He brought those rock skills along with expertise in ice climbing to the western Alps where he established the day’s cutting edge routes. In 1934 he climbed the northwest face of Pic d’Olan; in 1935 the south ridge of Pic Gaspard and did the second ascent of the Sperone Croz; the Freney North Pillar in 1940 and many other big routes. One of his best routes was the first ascent of the East Face of the Grandes Jorasses with Giuseppe Gagliardone in 1942 while an army officer. Gervasutti was tragically killed in 1946 on Mont Blanc du Tacul while trying to free a stuck rappel rope.

This quote is from his book Scalate nelle Alpi, which was published posthumously in 1947 and published in English in 1957. At its heart is an answer to the age-old question that every serious climber and alpinist is asked: Why do you climb? As Gervasutti aptly points out, there is no easy answer and there is no single answer such as Everest mountaineer George Mallory’s infamous off-the-cuff remark “Because it’s there.” Instead it’s a medley of reasons that allow us climbers to express ourselves and to satisfy some inner itch.

“For there is no such thing as objective mountaineering, there is only a form of activity, generically termed mountaineering, which enables certain people to express themselves, or gives them a means of satisfying an inner need, just as there are other forms of activity and other means by which other people may try to attain the same ends.

“Of course, since the need is completely different for each individual, we have many forms of mountaineering. It may take the form of a need to live heroically, or to rebel against restraint and limitation: an escape from the restricting circle of daily life, a protest against being submerged in universal drabness, an affirmation of the freedom of the spirit in dangerous and splendid adventure. Or it may well be the pleasure of physical fitness and moral energy, elegance of style and calculated daring; ordeals gaily faced with friends themselves as firm as rock, the hard life of the high huts, the happy relaxation on remote pastures as one smokes a pipe or sings mountain songs. It may be the search for an intense aesthetic experience, for exquisite sensations, or for man’s never satisfied desire for unknown country to explore, new paths to make. Best of all, it should be all these things together.”

Buy Giusto Gervasutti’s book:
Gervasutti’s Climbs A classic book of alpine adventure .

Photo above: Giusto Gervasutti on the cover of his book Scalate nelle Alpi.