Walter Bonatti, born in Bergamo, and died in Rome, was an Italian mountaineer, mountain guide, journalist and photographer, considered by many to be the best mountaineer of all time.

Bonatti was not yet 20 when he climbed the austere west face of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey and the formidable north face of the Grandes Jorasses. At 20 years old when he manages to trace a route in the overhanging walls of the east face of the Grand Capucin. Masterful demonstration of the possibilities of artificial climbing in the Mont-Blanc massif. "The greatest rock feat accomplished to date" soberly comments Gaston Rébuffat. Even today, climbing the Bonatti-Ghigo at Grand Cap means marveling at the intelligence of a route within a completely overhanging wall. Just 24 years old and Bonatti is from the Italian team that made the first ascent of K2 (8611 m, second summit of the Earth). The feat that restores pride to a country hardly relevant to the Second World War is tainted with a lie.

He is accused, wrongly, of having consumed oxygen from the precious bottles he is carrying towards the assault rope. Slander of this rope party which made sure not to share the tent at more than 8000 m - forcing Bonatti and the carrier Madhi to a bivouac without protective equipment and to affirm not to have been able to use the oxygen bottles until ' at the top for lack of sufficient quantity of the precious gas. Back in Italy, Bonatti failed to make his voice heard. Affected in his honor, the young climber goes through a deep moral crisis from which he emerges by the extraordinary ascent of the western pillar of the Drus, alone and in five days.

The irrefutable proof of the lie finally came out in 1993 in the form of a photo which shows Compagnoni at the top of K2. An oxygen mask covers his face: the summits used the precious gas well until the end of the ascent.

In the decade 55-65, Walter Bonatti devoted himself to his job as a guide and achieved many firsts in the Mont-Blanc massif, which he made his garden (Grandes Jorasses, Pilier d'Angle, Pilier Rouge du Brouillard). On the distant mountains, the success of the impressive Gasherbrum IV (7925 m, Pakistan) with the second Italian national expedition does not reconcile it with the Himalayas of the time: "The conquest of the G4 was for me a disappointing experience , limited, in complete disagreement with my state of mind". In 1959, he became Millet's first technical advisor, and participated in the development of the brand's mountain backpacks. The tragedy of the pillar of Frêney lived in the heart of the summer of 1961 definitively shapes the legend of Bonatti. The attempt to open the highest granite wall of Mont Blanc ended in the death of four climbers among the two ropes who had joined forces when the storm arrived. The survivors (Pierre Mazeaud, Roberto Gallieni) owe life only to Bonatti's abnegation and resistance qualities.

In 1965, Walter Bonatti was 35 years old and bowed out with panache: the opening in winter of a new route on the austere north face of the Matterhorn. Of this great success, he would simply write: "Bonatti has now ceased to be the Bonatti mountaineer."

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