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Veteran mountaineer Walter Bonatti passes away

Veteran mountaineer Walter Bonatti passes away

THE DEATH has taken place of Walter Bonatti who was one of the world’s greatest mountaineers. He was 81.

Mr. Bonatti, who was Italian, had pioneered a number of new routes to the peaks of the world’s highest mountains.

He achieved many of his climbs alone and often refused to take part in large organised expeditions. This attitude is thought to have stemmed from an incident in 1954 when as a 24-year-old Mr. Bonatti had been a member of the Italian team which conquered K2.

However, controversy surrounded the achievement with Mr. Bonatti believing he had been robbed of his chance of making the final assent, which was completed by his two colleagues on the team, after confusion over the positioning of the highest camp.

But whatever Mr. Bonatti’s motivation was for mostly avoiding team efforts from that point onwards, it certainly did not prevent him from establishing himself among the world’s top climbers.

A year after the K2 incident, Mr. Bonatti climbed the Petit Dru in the French Alps via an untried route on its west face — a particularly dangerous section of the climb has since been known as the Bonatti Pillar.

Among his other achievements was his climb of the Matterhorn in the early 1960s which established a new route up the middle of mountain’s north face. 

By the age of 35 Mr. Bonatti had begun to concentrate his efforts on writing about mountaineering. He also worked as a photojournalist. 

 

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