Saturday 31 July 2010 - 03.04
Grolla D’Or for the finest international alpinist achievement by an alpine guide from the Aosta Valley.
HERVE’ BARMASSE
For the first solo ascent and first repetition on 16th April 2007 of the Direct route on the South face of the Matterhorn. This route was opened by his father Marco with Walter Cazzanelli and Vittorio De Tuoni in 1983. The exploit is living proof of how the culture and traditions of the Aosta Valley and of all the mountains in the world continue to be an integral part of the profession of the alpine guide. A “knowledge” that is transmitted from father to son and that the new generations evolve by adding new experiences and ideas.
Hervé Barmasse
“Alpinism is a great adventure for me and whilst on the South face of the Matterhorn, tied to rather risky rocks and suspended on a huge wall I must admit that’s what I felt….” Hervé Barmasse.
Hervé Barmasse is not just an alpine guide from Valtournenche but also a ski and snowboard instructor. Guiding runs in the family and comes from four generations of guides inheriting a passion of the mountains and the Matterhorn from his father Marco. Proof of his passion is the way that the 30 year old alpinist, brilliant climber and television presenter of mountain films for the RAI, has always tried to continue this tradition on big walls both in and out of Europe. Among these are: the new route on the Chogolisa Shield (5700m) and on Sheep Peak (6300m) in Pakistan during 2003 He continued this experience in 2005 with two new routes with the Karakorum Trip One Expedition on the Chogolisa Shield and the unclimbed Peak 5500. In 2006 he climbed a new ice and mixed route on the unclimbed North face of San Lorenzo in Patagonia with Bernasconi, Lanfranchi and Ongaro.It’s worth taking note among his numerous achievements of the first winter and first repetition with Massimo Farina of the difficult Padre Pio route on the Matterhorn’s South face and again on the same wall one mustn’t forget his poker of first solo routes on Casarotto-Grassi in 2002, the Deffeyes route in 2005 and the Machetto route in 2007 and the first solo and first repeat of the direct route opened by his father that won him the Grolla D’Or of the first edition of the Saint-Vincent Award. This prize joins the two CAI Paolo Consiglio Awards for the Karakorum expedition in 2005 and the new route on San Lorenzo. Recently he has also achieved a historic feat when, along with Christian Brenna, he opened a new route on the North West face of the Cerro Piergiorgio in Patagonia.
Hervé Barmasse is a good example of how a young alpinist can learn from the past and create something new. This appears clear in the following interview:
The direct route on the South face of the Matterhorn is a sprint starting at 2900m, reaching the summit at 4478m after just 1500 metres. The “great run”, seemingly from another epoch, was performed by Hervé Barmasse with a sensation of “déjà vu”.
“It was something that I’d always thought about. It seemed strange that a route on the Matterhorn still had to be repeated”. Hervé explains “On the other hand the Matterhorn is in my back garden and the South face has always been in view ever since I was born. It’s always there, like having a friend. A huge wall, just for me….”
The South face is the story of a life time but also part of the family history. Did your father know you were planning on repeating it? “I’d mentioned it some time ago but without pressing for any information. He just said to take a rope for a change. It was good advice … even though I only used it to get my rucksack back and to climb back up to get it unstuck”.
Was it was you thought it would be? “Mainly yes, even though I’d planned to take 5 to 6 hours and it took me 8. I had to back track a couple of times to find the right route. I’m not even sure if I followed the same route as the previous climbers… when my father gets back from Nepal I’ll have to ask him, as I said, I really didn’t get any information from him at all” Why did you decide to repeat something your father had done, emulation or a challenge? “No there was no sense of a challenge at all. I respect him so maybe it was an opportunity to make my own experiences and reinterpret his tracks”.
How did you decide to set off? Well you know how it goes. I had the idea, the weather was good and I felt the need to challenge myself and the mountains. I needed to face the unknown and that’s just what the route was. So I set off for the South face”. What did you get out of this route? “Above all the satisfaction of managing to do something I wanted. I added another layer to my experience of the mountains and of alpinism. An experience that would then ….”.
An extract of an interview on Planetmountain.com
