Matterhorn Big Wall
3 friends and mountaineers, 2 routes linked together according to a visionary project, 1 iconic mountain in the heart of the Alps.
Grivel's new film MATTERHORN BIG WALL, directed by Ai Nagasawa, is out on their YouTube Channel.
In the end of February 2022 François Cazzanelli, Emrik Favre and Francesco Ratti made the first repetition and first winter ascent of “Padre Pio Prega Per Noi + Echelle Ver le Ciel” (1870m, 7b max) opened by Patrick Gabarrou on the South Face of the Matterhorn.
This is their story.
Retracing Patrick Gabarrou's mountaineering vision in designing these routes led to a reflection on what mountaineering itself is, on the importance of sharing authentic, exciting, strong, even risky moments, in which the individual's ego gives way to team play and to contemplation of the beauty, that only the high mountains can offer.
“The Matterhorn for me is a school of life” says François “because what I have learned on the Matterhorn, what I continue to learn, I have had the luck and the privilege of taking it to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world”.
