Military skiing on the Alps
The standard bearer of military ski-mountaineering
in central Europe was a German, Lieutenant Wilhelm Paulcke:
in 1893 he convinced General Staff to include skiing
units into the Jäger battalions; their tasks were
to include reconnoitering, providing safety and connections.
The “Winter Lieutenant”, as he became known,
also invented the military patrol races which were to
enjoy tremendous success in the years to come, so much
so that they became a part of the Winter Olympics.
The German experiment was copied by the Austrian army
and by the French Chasseurs des Alpes.
In the winter of 1896, Adolfo Kind, a Swiss engineer
and chemist resident in Turin, where he was a member
of CAI (Italian Alpine Club), purchased two pairs of
skis from Switzerland. They were of Norwegian make with
wicker attachments; they also came with a two metre-long
pole, an iron tip and a wooden disc for pushing, turning,
braking and stopping.
Artillery Lieutenant, Luciano Roiti, was also part of
the group. In March 1897 he wrote an article for the
journal “Esercito Italiano” (“Italian
Army”) “Of marches on the snows” which
may be considered our first set of technical instructions
on ski-mountaineering. Kind and his friends founded
the Turin Ski club in 1901, one of whose members was
Ottorino Mezzalama.
The Alpine soldiers learn to ski
From a model purchased at his own expense in Switzerland,
Colonel Ettore Troia, Commander of the 3rd Alpine Corps,
with headquarters in Turin, had several pairs made in
1897 by the Chief Armourer. Amid the tumbles and oathes
of the Alpine soldiers, he had them tested on the hills
of Valsalice to the hilarity of the onlookers, attracted
by the unusual spectacle, and the misgivings of the
senior officials, who observed the scene well wrapped
up from the edges of the slopes.
You can just imagine hearing them say: "I say,
Colonel, please would you do me a favour, throw those
damned pieces of wood away; for heaven’s sake
we’re making fools of ourselves...".
In spite of the good intentions, this “self-taught”
exercise was to prove by and large ineffective. There
were no manuals or capable instructors and after the
initial enthusiasm had started to wane, the group training
exercises were gradually put to one side. Supporters
of the snowshoes objected that the Alpine structure,
with its jagged formations, narrow, twisting valleys,
steep slopes with obstacles at every step, was unable
to provide the space needed to make profitable use of
these new means of transport.
It took the obduracy of a handful of military and civilian
enthusiasts to prevent the initiative from dying off.
The new “discipline” began to gain ground
with the arrival to the 3rd Alpine Corps of iron-willed
Oreste Zavattar from Tortona. He endorsed the futility
of having numerous units on skis and, instead, encouraged
specific training specifically for agile patrols who
were to reconnoiter, open up the slopes, provide connections
and engage in brisk action. But above all, he expounded
the need to set up a “ski-ing school” for
officers and other ranks.
His idea gained popularity in the wake of developments
in France and, in the winter of 1901, the first skiing
courses were held at Cesana, Clavières and Moncenisio
under the guidance of Scandinavian instructors. Far
better equipment purchased in Switzerland and Norway
started to appear: attachments had leather straps worn
around the instep. Ski poles were still unknown and
the alpenstock became the all-purpose tool for pushing,
curving, maintaining one’s balance and braking
by scraping the ground (ending a stretch of skiing in
a fall was not considered inelegant. On the contrary
it was held to be the best technique for stopping).
The superiority of the new instruments over the snowshoes
was firmly accepted and “skis” were adopted
by the Alpine Corps with approval by royal decree in
November 1902: this was the first step towards a widespread
popularity in the sport.
Da Rodi wrote in the early 1920s "The Army was
the first to take to skiing on a big scale and spread
the discipline ". Decio Buffoni wrote: "....wooden
skis thousands and thousands of young men trained in
their usage and who shaped the fortune of the “white”
sport....".
OTTORINO MEZZALAMA
The father of ski-mountaineering
"Tall, with a square build, a serious yet
expressive face with a big black moustache on each
side,” is how Pietro Ghiglione, mountaineer
and mountain writer remembered his friend, Ottorino
Mezzalama, artillery sub-lieutenant when they joined
the 3rd Alpine Corps in Turin in October 1915 with
the other skiing instructors-officials who had been
called up for the “war races”
Born in Bologna in 1888, Ottorino Mezzalama had taken
part in the 1912 operations on the Libyan front as
a sergeant, earning a commendation for having “performed
his tasks with calm and without regard of the danger
to himself, also in areas under enemy fire”.
He was called up again at the outbreak of the First
World War as reserve sub-lieutenant: he was promoted
to the rank of lieutenant in 1916 and captain the
year after.
By the eve of the fateful 24th May, approximately
three thousand Alpine soldiers had gained some sort
of knowledge of the methods of using the new equipment
and each battalion its own a platoon of skiers whose
main tasks were of an exploratory nature. But it soon
became clear that enemy training had been done in
far greater depth.
In fact, when hostilities broke out older skiers and
instructors from sports clubs had to be called up
to organize regular courses planned during the winter
break in military operations. Courses took place in
various parts of the western Alps not involved in
the conflict, where even the poorest of barracks,
alpine huts or shelters were available.
The technical manual "Instructions for using
skis ", published by General Staff in 1908 was
edited in 1912 further to the adoption of two ski
poles. Skiing equipment was usually in ash (Norwegian
hickory articles were rare as they were costly) and
were 85 inches long and 3 inches wide, and weighed
around 11 pounds.
The first course was held in October 1915 on Colle
del Piccolo San Bernardo; the second was held in the
area surrounding the former royal hunting lodge of
Dondena, in the upper Champorcher valley: its technical
director was Ottorino Mezzalama.
"He was reticent, quiet and fond of his own company
" continued Ghiglione "but once he had his
skis on he became active, enterprising and dynamic;
he was single-minded and had an iron will supported
by stamina on which one could rely entirely ".
Colleagues and pupils were impressed when they saw
his enormous mountain rucksack which he would never
hand over to anyone, not even the assistant. In it
he would put anything that might turn out useful,
even in anticipation of the most unlikely events.
“You never know,” he was often heard to
say, “you know when you go off to the mountains
but not when you are going to come back.”
Courses continued for the entire winter season of
1916/17 in Valle Stura, at Bardonecchia, at the Monginevro
pass, at Salice d'Ulzio and at Breuil. They then relocated
to behind the units at the front lines. In 1917, 26
skiing groups divided into 13 battalions were formed
(the 3rd Alpine Corps was given the skiing battalion
"Courmayeur"). They were to enter various
arenas of battle, achieving great success in Valcamonica
and Valtellina and they were to go down in history
as " The white warriors of Adamello".
The first mass ski training at a national level was
led to the fringes of battle but went virtually unnoticed
by the annals of events that were enveloping Italy
and Europe in such turmoil. Nevertheless, it was to
sew an important seed that would bear fruit in subsequent
years.
The first period of experimentation could be considered
over by 1920: the cumbersome skis became more of a
domestic item in Italy and seemed to gain greater
fluidity. Whilst the war-inflicted traumas began to
heal, snow-related sports began to take off and branch
out into different disciplines; downhill skiing, cross-country
skiing, luging and bobsleighing with the inevitable
aspect of competition.
Yet ski-mountaineering did not seem to be caught up
in the general euphoria. With an inborn reluctance,
like a nobleman loyal to his family origins, solitude
and silence were its ideal terrain. The ski-mountaineer
did not care much for the downhill pistes or the cross-country
circuits where he was unable to take his own decisions.
Competition was an alien concept to him and even in
appearance he was to reveal his individuality with
outfits of a markedly mountaineering guise, shorter
skis, twin-purpose equipment for going uphill and
downhill. He would set off with his rucksack before
daybreak and all mechanical means of ascent were unknown
(the first sleds towed by rope date back to 1930).
The tiny female patrol which took on the new discipline
had to get rid of their skirts and boldly don trousers
(their husband’s or father’s, at least
initially).
Systematic exploration of the Alps began by seeking
out paths which did not necessarily culminate in the
conquest of a peak. Hollows and slopes were not the
inevitable midway points of arrival but had the same
importance as vertical walls for mountaineers.
The path of the year Two Thousand
In the meantime, Ottorino Mezzalama had also obtained
a degree in Commercial and Economic Science and moved
to Turin. He became a member of the CAI (Italian Mountaineering
Club) Ski Club and took up gymnastics, fencing and
canoeing. But his gaze would continually wander from
the windows of his office towards the Alps that rose
on the distant horizon as he began to dream of a long
skiing route that would envelope them, “the
path of the year Two Thousand".
He remained a bachelor and lived at home with his
elderly mother. “Who do you think will marry
me?” he would say. “I’m too ugly
and I haven’t got time: one finds a wife on
Sundays and on Sundays I am always alone and at high
altitudes".
On Saturday afternoon (the long working week was still
in force) he would throw his large rucksack, skis
and ice axe on to the train and in the evening he
would reach a mountain destination, at an hour when
respectable people would be shutting themselves in
their homes for their evening meal.
He would eat a simple meal, take a nap and at the
first break of day he would already be climbing up
some snow-capped crest or crossing a swollen gully,
trying to recognize a path he had examined in the
previous summer, seeking out the most suitable crossing
for a slope, studying the best point and way of making
a curve. He did not hesitate to go back on his steps
if caution advised it and he did not forget to capture
a shot of the most stunning scenes on his camera to
go with the report he would send back to the CAI.
The twenties were to be his golden decade, an interrupted
period of intense commitment in every season and at
all times, aimed at the methodical and painstaking
execution of a project he had drafted during his military
service: to explore the entire Alpine chain from the
Maritime to the Julian Alps on skis to demonstrate
the great opportunities our mountains hold for the
ski mountaineer and create a vast range of literature
on all possible itineraries.
In 1930 he wrote: "Studying a skiing route always
has the feel of exploration and affords the same satisfaction
as a first ascent ... connection between the numerous
peaks, glaciers and valleys is highly interesting
because of the variety of aspects and the continuous
observations and reflections one is forced to make,
both to find direction and choose passage and slopes.
Indeed, at the end of a crossing one has the impression
of having completed a real journey ".
This complete sensation experienced to the full made
Mezzalama the most knowledgeable person on the Alps
circle, from the Tyrhennian Sea to the Brennero Pass.
In June 1927, together with Ettore Santi, he completed
the first Italian ascent on skis up Mont Blanc.
His famous rucksack normally contained rations for
a minimum of three days, winter clothes, thirty metres
of rope, crampons, ice axe and photographic material.
The load fluctuated between 15 and 25 kg when it was
not further weighed down by his skis. Strangely, he
never made use of sealskins, although he recognized
their usefulness, but all in all he preferred ski
waxes.
On 31st January 1931, in the Rochemolles valley above
Bardonecchia, he took part voluntarily in the search
for twenty-one Alpine soldiers from the 3rd Alpine
Corps who had been swept away by an avalanche. This
is the memory Angelo Manaresi had of him on that day:
"...with his long, gangly gait which never betrayed
any signs of fatigue or the difficulty of the ascent,
he walked with all that equipment on, which made him
resemble a soldier on fatigue; every so often he would
raise his eyes calmly upwards and his pointed moustache
added an almost dated touch of warmth to his thin,
dark face".
After a few days it was in fact the Alpine soldiers,
the 6th Corps together with the mountaineers from
the Bolzano section of the CAI, who would bring his
lifeless body back down.
He was taken by surprise by the bad weather at the
peak of the Bicchiere on the Breonie Alps and was
forced to stay for three days in the icy mountain
hut Elena (now called Dino Biasi) together with his
friend, Mazzocchi. On the fourth day, on the return
journey, he was knocked down and overwhelmed by an
avalanche. His companion searched for him desperately
until dusk, but in vain raced down the mountain in
search of aid. The morning after, a deathly hand protruding
from the snow led rescuers to where he had met his
death.
Ottorino Mezzalama’s great dream had been brought
to an end by the very same mountains he had tried
for so many years to join by a single itinerary. But
the tracks left by his skis were to leave a permanent
and indelible trace along the entire chain of the
Alps.
His last report, published posthumously in the introduction
to the CAI journal, under the title “Multi vocati,
pauci vero electi" (“many are called, few
are elected”) seems to express to his friends
the technical handbook of the ski-mountaineer. These
were to be the principles that were to inspire them
in organizing the great event in his honour: the Mezzalama
Trophy.
"Knowing how to get the most out of one’s
skiing capabilities at altitude and on long excursions,
requires training that is by no means brief, and the
closer to perfection one’s technique the greater
the results will be. Whereas the mountaineer can acquire
the knowledge for using crampons and ice axe in a
relatively short period of time, only after long usage
and many crossings can all the miraculous results
possible with skis be achieved...
My experience of many long crossings makes me convinced
that the skier should exploit his skis to the full
and not consider them an accessory instrument, like
some who, by limiting their use, show their lack of
proficiency with them. Only in really exceptional
conditions of terrain, slope and snow can the skier
feel forced to remove his skis and tow them behind
him....
In addition to mountaineering technique and physical
training, one needs to have a thorough understanding
of the mountain setting, of its generosity and changes
in temperament, of its hidden dangers and enticements,
of its seasonal periods of rest and re-awakening,
so that all good circumstances can be taken advantage
of and all bad ones avoided ...
Once accepted that the skier can rely solely on his
own strengths and skills and once he has achieved
this complete sense of security and ability, with
the aid of ice axe, crampons and rope, he can make
of the mountains his entire world.”
Mezzalama’s rucksack
"He can make of the mountains his entire
world" summed up the attractive prospect of becoming
mountaineers all year round rather than mountaineers
in summer and skiers in winter.
For his friends from Turin it was enough to take out
of his famous bag those tools which, by complementing
each other, symbolized the new global conception of
mountaineering: in memory of their mentor they proposed
a sports commemoration of a new kind at high altitude
where, together with traditional methods of progress,
skiing would give a more complete outline to mountaineering
in roped groups.
Initially, they turned their attention to the upper
valley of Susa, where the Turin club had engaged in
its first ski-mountaineering experiences. Here a relay
race was to start from the Kind Hut and reach Clavière,
passing Sestrière and the Mautino Hut en route.
The Turin section of CAI awarded a bronze trophy by
the sculptor Monti depicting a skier arriving at the
image of Ottorino Mezzalama carved in the snow.
The idea, accepted in principle by the central CAI
office in 1932, did not however gain unanimous consensus
among the Turin members in terms of choice of venue.
Some, furthermore, made no secret of their misgivings
over holding the actual race itself. The concept of
competition was hard to accept as a mountaineer tends
constantly to avoid the type competition accepted
and promoted by the winter sports community. Speed,
as an absolute measure of performance over a route
plagued by obstacles and, above all, at the whim of
the weather was to become the subject of many heated
disputes.
On the one hand, there were those who maintained the
absurdity of a mountaineering event marked by the
ticking of a clock. On the other, speed was considered
a safety factor, which could provide a way out of
a potentially dangerous situation. And it was this
factor that prevailed in the end.
After the Susa valley had lost its appeal and the
idea of an endurance race had been abandoned, it was
agreed that a fitting commemoration could only be
held on the most majestic glacier group of the Alps
stretching from Cervino to Monte Rosa, covering the
peaks of Valtournenche, the Ayas Valley, the Gressoney
Valley and Valsesia if the freedom of the athletic
spirit was to be respected: a run at an altitude of
close on four thousand metres, which usually took
well-trained skiers a full day to complete.
The departure was set at the Teodulo peak (3317 m.):
in succession participants were to overcome the Breithorn
peak (3826 m.), the Verra Passo (3848 m.), the Castore
(4226 m.), the Felik peak (4061 m.), the Sella Hut
(3585 m.), the Lyskamm Ridge (4100 m.), the Lys glacier
up to the Gnifetti Hut (3648 m.), the Linty Hut (3047
m.), the Gabiet Alp (2342 m.) and finally Gressoney-la-Trinité
(1637 m.). But in the first editions, the highest
village of the Lys valley was never reached and the
final stretch depended on how generous the season
was with its snowfalls.
The distance was around 35 km; the uphill ascent was
16OO metres.
The most important rules laid down in the regulation
were the following:
- race for club teams consisting of three competitors;
- admission to the competition upon medical check-up;
- athletes to be of adult age;
- departure according to draw;
- progress roped together from the Teodulo peak to
Gnifetti Hut;
individual progress from Gnifetti to the finishing
line to be reached as a whole team
- wearing of crampons on feet and skis over shoulders
mandatory in the following stretches:
Verra-Castore peak - Felik peak and when crossing
the Lyskamm ridge;
- stay at the Sella Hut for 30 minute rest; medical
check and ban on proceeding for competitors deemed
physically unfit;
- mountaineering equipment:
* for teams: mountain rope and ice axe;
* for individuals: mountain pack and ice crampons.
- skiing equipment of choice; any type of provisioning
en route was forbidden: any replacement parts had
to be brought from the start.
Registration, which was free of charge, was limited
to the capacity of the "Principe di Piemonte"
Hut at Teodulo (50 beds), where the race officials
and competitors were to sleep in order to be ready
for departure at the very break of day.
Prizes: golden badge for members of the winning team,
silver badge for the others; cups and medals provided
by the various authorities and boards.
The trophy was to be kept for a year by the winning
team and awarded finally to the team that was to be
victorious for three years in a row.
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