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Walter Bonatti ((:ˈvalter boˈnatti); 22 June 1930 in Bergamo – 13 September 2011 in Rome) was an Italian mountain climber, explorer and journalist. He was noted for his many climbing achievements, including a solo climb of a new route on the south-west pillar of the Aiguille du Dru in August 1955, the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in 1958 and in 1965 the first solo climb in winter of the North face of the Matterhorn on the mountain's centenary year of its first ascent. Immediately after his extraordinary solo climb on the Matterhorn Bonatti announced his retirement from professional climbing at the age of 35 and after only 17 years of climbing activity. He authored many mountaineering books and spent the remainder of his career travelling off the beaten track as a reporter for the Italian magazine ''Epoca''. He died on 13 September 2011 of pancreatic cancer in Rome aged 81, and was survived by his life partner, the actress Rossana Podestà. Famed for his climbing panache, he pioneered little known and technically difficult climbs in the Alps, Himalayas and Patagonia. ==Life and career== Son of a working-class family (the father was a fabric merchant), Bonatti soon started practising gymnastics in a sport association in Monza. The physical strength and balance he developed here would prove to be crucial skills when Bonatti was introduced to climbing at age 18. Bonatti started climbing on the Grigna, a rocky mountain of the Italian Prealps, where he spent the summer of 1948 climbing intensively. During 1949, within a year of starting to climb, he made the first repetition of the ''Oppio-Colnaghi-Guidi Route'', a challenging climb on the South Face of the Croz dell'Altissimo long and rated UIAA V+. Soon after followed the climb of the ''Bramani-Castiglioni Route'' on the North-West face of Piz Badile, the second repetition of the ''Ratti-Vitali route'' on the West Face of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, a rocky mountain in the Italian part of the Mount Blanc massif and the fourth ascent of the Walker Spur on the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses in only two days and with limited equipment. This last route had been climbed for the first time in 1938 by Riccardo Cassin and consists of of rock-climbing with UIAA difficulty of IV and V and one step of VI+. The climb of the Walker Spur by the ''Cassin route'' is exposed to stone-fall and ranks together with the North Face of the Eiger as one of the major climbs achieved in the Alps between the two world wars. In less than two years since he started climbing, Bonatti had already joined the restricted circle of the best Italian climbers. Bonatti had limited financial means and his first climbs were done with very basic equipment (he made large use of pitons that he had manufactured personally). During the first years Bonatti worked in a steel mill and climbed on Sunday directly after the Saturday night shift. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Walter Bonatti」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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