Courmayeur · Italy

The man who stopped

This hut carries the name of Walter Bonatti, and the most remarkable part of his story is not a climb: it is the moment at which he stopped. In February 1965, exactly a hundred years after the first ascent of the Matterhorn, Bonatti climbed the north face of that mountain alone, in midwinter, by a new route, in four days. He was the finest climber in the world and he was thirty-four. On reaching the summit he announced that he had finished, and he never returned to a hard face. He spent the following thirty years travelling for an Italian magazine, sending reports from Patagonia, Africa and Alaska. Four years earlier, a few valleys from here, he had already lived through the worst week of his life on the Frêney pillar. To stop at the top, while all is still going well, is given to almost nobody.

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Why did he really stop?

He said he had done what he wanted to do. Another matter weighed too: in 1954, on K2, he had been at the centre of a controversy about the Italian expedition that followed him for decades, and where his account was only accepted much later. He had reasons for wanting to turn elsewhere.

What was his connection to this valley?

A long one. He had worked as a guide at Courmayeur, opened routes on this side of Mont Blanc and lived here for years. The hut was named after him while he was still alive, which is unusual and indicates how he was regarded here.

How do you get to the hut?

On foot, about an hour and a half from the floor of Val Ferret, on a path that then carries on as a balcony along the whole valley. It is a stage of the Tour du Mont Blanc, and the terrace looks straight across at the Grandes Jorasses.

Where it is

Rifugio Walter Bonatti, Val Ferret, 11013 Courmayeur · 45.84691, 7.03364 · Open in Maps

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