SIMON GIETL
THE HERITAGE OF OUR FATHERS
Cima Grande di Lavaredo: from an undefined point between the Comici-Dimai and the Dulfer routes, two routes which have marked the history of alpinism, a vague clanking noise can be heard. But there is no one on the face, not on those two lines at least. It is a week day at the beginning of June, there is nobody about, it makes you think there might be ghosts around. Instead there really is someone on the face: a couple of hard bangs from a hammer, sharp and precise, resound from below the roof of the arête which marks the edge between the north and west face, revealing the roped party’s position. It is Simon Gietl and Andrea Oberbacher, and the route they are freeing for the first time is not on any guide books, or at least, not yet. It is called “Das Erbe der Väter”, the father’s legacy, and it is not simply a route. It is the demonstration of a certain way of considering alpinism: because sometimes to move forward it is necessary to look behind.
