INTERVIEW > MOUNTAINEERING > YURI PARIMBELLI
Supercanaleta al Fitz Roy ph. arch. Parimbelli
Melanconie - free solo - 7a+ - Valle dei Mulini ph. Davide Locatelli
Cornalba - Alabarda spaziale 8b+ ph.Marco Spataro
Il senso della misura 7b - Presolana Ph. arch. Parimbelli
Tanta voglia di Vivere WI 4+ Val Brembana Ph. arch. Parimbelli
Su una nuova via in Valtorta ph. arch. Parimbelli
ph. Matteo Zanga
Yuri su Heimdall WI 5+ Valtournenche ph. mario sertori
Heimdall WI 5+ ph.mario sertori
YURI PARIMBELLI
climber all round
January 05, 2011
Interview by Maurizio Panseri (12-2010)
One freezing-cold February morning, with Daniele, I was pulling down the rope from the last abseil after having climbed the Modica-Noury couloir on Mont Blanc du Tacul. The wind was strong and the temperature well below zero. We were the only climbers in this area right in the heart of the Mont Blanc massif.
We were descending and were very surprised to meet Yuri Parimbelli, our friend and fellow-climber. Yuri is an Alpine guide and was with a client, with whom he was planning to climb the Gabarrou-Albinoni, a famous ice climb on this side of the mountain.
We stopped for a moment and as we were chatting about the very cold weather and the conditions, teasing ourselves that we must be mad to want to climb in such an inhospitable place, I was looking attentively at Yuri’s client.
It’s rare to find people climbing here in such conditions, even more so to find a guide with a client who radiates calmness and trust in his “maestro”.
The client was silent and calm, as if this was normal behaviour in such a place, and seemed perfectly at ease despite the cold and continuous gusts of wind which raised swirls of snow crystals. I pointed out to him the icicles which glittered above our heads between the granite pillars, and he looked at them without any fear on his face.
He was there with his guide and he only needed to know that everything was under control and that there was nothing to worry about. Yuri moves easily and naturally even in the most difficult situations, with clients he never pushes himself to his limit and his calmness reassures his clients.
We said Goodbye and Yuri and his client set off upwards. I looked once again at the client and I was happy for him, because with a teacher like Yuri he’d soon be able to go by himself to these magic places with their cold winter mountain air.
I’m telling this story since it gives a good insight into Yuri Parimbelli and the passion and professionalism he dedicates to his guiding.Yuri is reserved and he doesn’t often talk about himself. When he does talk about his climbs, it’s without boasting and always in the quiet voice you’d expect someone to use to describe the walks in the woods near their home.
Yuri is an eclectic climber whose strong point is precisely being an all-rounder. He performs to a high standard in all disciplines and on all types of ground, easily switching from 8c sport climbing to putting up new multi-pitch routes with 7b obligatory moves, to the toughest icefalls, to skiing down steep couloirs and slopes.
I am already talked about your Alpine climbing prowess, since if I waited for you I’d be still waiting to hear you say “it wasn’t really so difficult and lots of other people can climb the same and harder things” so let’s forget the false modesty and focus on your work as an Alpine guide. What was it that led you to turn your hobby into your work?
It was my curiosity and desire to embark on a career which I thought would have been exciting, as it’s turned out to be. It was Bruno Tassi, who was a good friend of mine, who catalyzed things, helping me to believe in myself, and pushing me to seek out new experiences which stimulated my “hunger for climbing”. I knew nothing about the world of Guiding, and one day Bruno looked at me and said to me in dialect that I should become an Alpine Guide. And this is what happened. There followed some really intense years, surrounded by fantastic people who believed in me and with whom I shared this experience which resulted in me becoming an Alpine Guide in 2006 and Guides’ Instructor in 2010.
Why should someone hire a guide to start going into the mountains? Isn’t an expert friend sufficient? What extra does a guide offer?
Alpine guides are professionals who love their work and who dedicate themselves 100% to a complicated job. To go into the mountains in every season and on all types of terrain isn’t something you learn from books. It requires constant, careful experience. Every time you go into the mountains, you must be able to attentively observe to understand all the different degrees of what’s going on and all the messages that the surroundings can offer. In addition to technical capabilities, which for me are the least important aspect, there’s the accompanying of people, and sharing with them your know-how and experience. During our training to become guides, there’s a special emphasis on the management of the client. You must be able to put the client at ease and, above all, you have to gain the experience to be able to manage, in advance, potentially-dangerous situations, without creating alarm and always putting yourself in the client’s shoes. For example, when you’re moving together, the management of the pair of climbers becomes a real art, which has evolved over the years and which, like all the arts, you can learn it only from someone who already knows how to do it and continues to do it. I can assure you that you don’t learn in a year’s course but you keep on refining it by doing it. Knowing how to read the terrain, foresee situations, anticipate how people will behave with us and be their “permanent belay” is very complicated and difficult and only those who decide to become guides manage to fully understand what it means, because the guide in these situations is 100% dedicated to and concentrated on his client. A friend can introduce you to what’ll become a passion and help you discover it. A guide can give you to chance to live it 360°, making it part of you and enabling you to develop it as you think best.
What do you think of the non-guiding figures who work in the various mountain associations?
All the other people in climbing and alpine clubs and associations who don’t work full-time, even though they are sometimes well-trained and competent, can never offer you the important value-added that I just talked about. They are undoubtedly people motivated by their love of their hobby, but they don’t dedicate their working lives to what they’re teaching. In addition, a guide, if he makes a mistake, is responsible both criminally and civilly. The “volunteer” is a good supporting figure for teaching, but has limits when we’re talking about people’s safety or even their lives. I think that it’s important that someone who wants to start going into the mountains knows the roles and limits of the various figures he’ll come across: from the instructor who instructs for the few weekends of a course, to the Alpine Guide who works 365 days a year guiding his clients. Obfuscating and confusion doesn’t help anyone. The Guida Alpina is trained by regional and national “colleges” which are governed by the Italian government. These “colleges” all refer to the UIGAMwhich sets down how guides are trained and the Guides’ work, world-wide, through careful selection of candidates and severe examinations assessed by professionals.
What sorts of clients do you have? What in particular do they ask you?
As of today, the people who come with me are above all people who want to enjoy a nice day in the mountains or who want to gradually learn, to be able to go climbing on their own. Many young people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet and whom I’ve trained no longer come with me; my objective is for them to be autonomous. So it’s with pleasure that I read about their climbs in the various forums. Sometimes they themselves call me and tell me what they’ve been up to. I am very proud when this happens, when I think that I have contributed, at least partly, to their development. When we meet by chance, hanging from some wall, I smiled dementedly and feel very satisfied; this is what my job is really about.
What do you prefer: a horde of kids or the climber-client who asks you to accompany him on a hard climb?
Both, they are both very difficult types of clients and therefore also very gratifying. In both cases we’re talking about a significant physical and mental commitment. The handshake at the foot of a crag or a difficult mountain, after having climbed to the summit and descended, gives me the same feeling of satisfaction and “adequacy” that I have when I glimpse the smile of a kid who’s enjoying trying out a new experience, even only 50 cm off the ground.
Snow, ice and rock, which do you prefer?
Climbing on rock was my first love and the engine behind everything, but now, depending on the season, the conditions and the free time that I have, I decide what do and where to go, with friends, some of whom are also colleagues.
What do you like about ice climbing and how is it different from the other disciplines?
I like how you manage (or at least try to manage) the ice, a natural element, using tools and so without the direct contact that you have with the rock. You have to learn how to use axes and crampons, which are not part of your body but which are the means by which you are in contact with the ice, and which allow you to climb an icefall. Skiing is a bit similar, but with ice climbing the effect is magnified because we use all our limbs and because (just like on rock) you have to overcome gravity.I am fascinated by how you can develop the ability to read the ice-covered surfaces to learn to optimise how to use the tools and make your movements fluid and effective.
Why would you take clients ice-climbing?
It’s one way to “live” the mountains and winter climbing and as we all know the mountains are lovely in winter. We learn to trust an element which at first seems hostile but which, if we learn to know and manage it, gives a lot of satisfaction and our enjoyment is guaranteed.
Ice climbing is a sport for the masses or for a select few??
In the last few years we see lots of ice climbers and this proves that this is a sport that many people can practise, with the right preparation and precautions.
How can an Alpine Guide affect the evolution of ice climbing, including its safety, in the light of the constant increase in the number of ice climbers?
It’s not the Alpine Guide as such who influences the evolution, but rather the people doing it. As has always been the case in every discipline, a few particularly talented people who were willing to train hard and pitch in contributed to raise standards, irrespective of whether they were or weren’t Alpine Guides. As guides, we deal with safety on all types of terrain, and, during our periodic training, we learn that there’s always something else you can do as far as safety is concerned. We enjoy a privileged position because we are always practising, on all types of terrain, and since we have safety – ours and that of our clients - as a priority, we are very aware of and are always developing safety.
Before we conclude this brief chat, we’d like to know which is your favourite water-ice climb and which you’d recommend as a first climb to one of your clients at the end of one of your courses.
I don’t have a favourite and I wouldn’t be able to give a list of recommended climbs. What I try to teach in my courses, to my clients and also through this discussion, is that every person must make their own choices, not based on today’s fashions, but exclusively based on the technical level that they’ve reached and their awareness of their own limits. At the end of every course, the pupil needs to understand the level they’ve reached and what they can and cannot do. This is fundamental and must be the aim of every teacher.
Yuri Parimbelli - Curriculum
Born in 1974, Yuri started going to the mountains every so often aged 15 and from the age of 21 he dedicated himself 100% to the mountains. He started sport climbing, from Cornalba to the other famous crags in the north of Italy and beyond, and his talent soon made itself obvious. With tenacity and dedication he soon reached a high standard on rock.
Looking for new challenges, he tried alpine climbing, icefalls and ski-mountaineering. Stealing as much time as he could from his work, he acquired the experience needed to become and Aspirant Guide in the Lombardy region in October 2004 and full guide in 2006, thus transforming his hobby into a full-time occupation. After further selection and training, he became in 2010 an Alpine Guides’ Instructor.
To reach this end-point, his contacts with Bruno Tassi (Camos) and Vito Amigoni were decisive. Equally important were his carefree adventures with many friends: Daniele Natali, Daniele Calegari, Marco Tiraboschi (kita), Giovanni Rivolta, Massimo Regonesi, Piera Vitali, Giangi Angeloni, Samuele Testa, and Maurizio Panseri.
Yuri is at ease with all sorts of climbing and on all sorts of ground. For sports climbing, Cornalba remains his favourite crag, where he climbs 8a on sight and redpoints 8c. Worthy of mention at Cornalba are the 4th repeat of “C’era una volta in America” 8c (2003), the first free ascents of “Zuper-Mandrake” 8c/8c+ (2005) and “Alabarda Spaziale” 8b+ (2008), the third repeat of “FBL” 8a+ (2009); in another historic Bergamo crag, Valle dei Mulini, the free-solo of “Melanconie” 7a+.
In the mountains he performs to just as high a standard with many important repeats of hard climbs all over the Alps, climbing up to 7c on-sight both on trad and bolted multi-pitch routes. On his home mountains he climbs at the highest levels, putting up many routes with high obligatory difficulty, and at times with very exacting ethical standards. We cite two climbs as examples: the first free-solo of “Pegaso Machine “ at the Pinnacolo di Maslana 7a (2006) and the first ascent, with Giangi Angeloni and Daniele Calegari, of “Il senso della misura” 7b obligatory and maximum difficulty, on the north face of the Presolana (2010).
He’s also happy on ice, with many repeats of benchmark grade 6 and 6+ icefalls in the Alps. In Valle Brembana he made the first repeat of “Damocle” 6 (2006) and last winter with Tiraboschi, Scanzi, and Bianzina, he made the first ascent of “Tanta voglia di vivere” 4+/IV with a section on thin ice.
He has participated in expeditions to the Himalayas with two attempts to make the first ascent of the east face of Nanda Devi East (7434m). He’s made two trips to Patagonia, climbing the Aguja Guillamet, the Aguja Poincenot and Fitz Roy by the Supercanaleta.
He works as an Alpine Guide in the mountains of Bergamo and the Alps including the Dolomites. He organizes trekking and expeditions to Nepal, China and Pakistan.
Cornalba Zupermandrake 8c+ ph. arch. Parimbelli
Val Brembana - Damocle WI 6 - ph.Matteo Zanga
Cornalba - Apache 8a+ - Ph. Marco Spataro
Il senso della misura 7b - Presolana Ph. arch. Parimbelli
In vetta all'Aguja Poincenot - Patagonia Ph. arch. Parimbelli
Su una nuova al Torrione di Menna ph. arch. Parimbelli
Val Brembana - Damocle WI 6 ph. Matteo Zanga
Cornalba ph mario sertori
Copyright © | Inviate i vostri commenti e suggerimenti a UPclimbing 
credits | privacy