When I was little, we did not have a television at home. I’ve always thought that it was a good thing, because the idols to emulate were not far and out of reach, they were closer, they were inside my house. The escapades of my brother Berti and Emilio Detomasi, another guide from Alagna, filled my childhood fantasies and dreams. Towards the end of elementary school, when I was asked what I had wanted to become once an adult, I did not even consider boring jobs like a helicopter pilot, an astronaut or other. My answer was only this: “what a stupid question you’re asking, it’s obvious I want to do the most fascinating job on earth!!”
At the age of 14, I started working at Capanna Margherita, the first of many seasons spent “on top” of my world. And what a beautiful world! Made up of endless horizons, dusks and dawns filled with colour and evenings so spectacular, it seems you only need to lift your hand to touch the sky.
My childhood myths became instructors first, then companions of unforgettable adventures. From them, I’ve learned that being a guide is more than a profession; first and foremost, it’s a way of life.
Half a life has passed since then. Today it’s more a way of life for me than practicing the profession. Like a circle that has closed, I have returned from where I started, back to my roots.
From the magical Val d’Otro, where I live and work, I sometimes go up to look far in the distance…I can’t say which peak is more or less beautiful, the biggest or the smallest. Each one has to feel the rush when standing on top of his Everest…that perfect place, where all the points and lines of a mountain come together, that epicentre of force and union, where it is not necessary to chase the goals of life and where questions do not exist….where we ourselves become the cold, the snow, the wind and the sun…