Walter Bonatti:'I HAVE often wondered," alpinist Walter Bonatti wrote in his memoir The Mountains of My Life, "whether I was born a loner or became one." For Bonatti, who has died aged 81 from cancer, undertook several of his greatest climbs alone.
Despite his new climbs on the Grand Capucin and the Petit Dru in the French Alps, and the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram, Pakistan, it was more often his controversial role in the first ascent of K2 in 1954, and the terrible storm on Mont Blanc in 1961 that killed four of his companions, that attracted attention.
By the end of his life all shadows over his reputation had been dispelled, leaving him among the greatest mountaineers ever.
Born in Bergamo, Lombardy, he spent his childhood in the Po valley. As an adolescent living in Monza he walked a lot in the Grigna, the limestone massif above the town of Lecco, where he acquired his taste for climbing.
Thanks to his natural ability and fierce ambition, he quickly became one of the foremost alpinists in Italy. In July 1951 he did his first significant new climb with Luciano Ghigo – the east face of the Grand Capucin, a skyscraper of granite in the shadow of Mont Blanc.
During military service in the Alpini, when he instructed mountain troops, he met Carlo Mauri, one of his key partners. On demobilisation they climbed the north face of the Cima Ovest di Lavaredo, in the Italian Alps – for the first time in winter – in February 1953.
By now Bonatti was a star, and it was impossible for the Italian Alpine Club to omit him in the team gathered to attempt K2. At the climax of the expedition, Bonatti and Pakistani porter Amir Mahdi brought crucial oxygen supplies to where Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni were poised to make their summit bid. But their tent was not where it was expected to be and Mahdi ended up with severe frostbite.
Lacedelli and Compagnoni, using the oxygen, reached the summit and Italy celebrated. Yet Bonatti found his contribution overlooked and was ostracised by the rest of the team.
He was selected to join Riccardo Cassin’s team to take on the unclimbed peak Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram. Their route, the northeast ridge, was not repeated until 1999.
In 1961, on Mont Blanc, a team of seven Italian and French climbers, including Bonatti, was caught in a storm. Four of the others died but Bonatti’s efforts helped save the life of Pierre Mazeaud, later a French politician.
Bonatti was awarded the Legion d’honneur in France but at home faced unjustified criticism for his actions. Later he published his first memoirs, Le Mie Montagne, which included a different take on what happened on K2.
Bonatti later quit alpinism to become a journalist, working for Epoca magazine in the remotest corners of the Earth.
In 2008, following Lacedelli’s admission that Bonatti had told the truth, the Italian Alpine Club confirmed his version of events.
Bonatti’s partner, Rossana Podesta, survives him.
Walter Bonatti, born June 22nd, 1930; died September 13th, 2011