Trauma, hypothermia, lightning:with CAI you don't climb but also rescue lessons

Climbing and roped parties but also training on the management of traumas and other emergencies at high altitude:here's how the CAI Eagle Team training session went for 15 male and female mountaineers between Coumayeur and the Gran Paradiso Park

MILAN – A morning dedicated to the health aspects connected to mountaineering opened the fifth training session of the Cai Eagle Team.Last week in Courmayeur, at the headquarters of the Montagna Sicura Foundation, the 15 mountaineers were able to delve deeper into topics such as the approach to mountaineering trauma and the emergency alert, the procedures for carrying out the first diagnosis of trauma, hypothermia and frostbite, nutrition on expeditions, lightning, electrocution, insect bites and snake bites.These aspects have been addressed by some of the leading experts in the field of mountain medicine and rescue:Luigi Festi (director of the Master in Mountain Medicine and of the Master in Mountain Emergency Medicine at the University of Insubria and vice-president of the Italian Society of Mountain Medicine), Luigi Vanoni (vice-president of the Central Medical Commission of the CAI), Mario Milani (director of the Doctors' School of the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps), Paolo Comune (director of the Valle d'Aosta Alpine Rescue), Stefano Trinchi (Governing Council of the Italian Mountain Medicine Society) and Lorenza Pratali (cardiologist at the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the CNR in Pisa).

The members of the Cai Eagle Team then moved to Royal Ceresole, Piedmontese gate of Gran Paradiso National Park, for the training session dedicated to the repetition of multipitch routes and the technique of crack climbing in Valle Orco.At the beginning of the 1970s, the Nuovo Mattino movement developed on the walls of Caporal and Sergent, a new way of conceiving mountaineering, far from the rhetorical interpretation of the "conquest" of the summit.

“Despite the cold and the wind, everyone managed to climb and make interesting climbs,” says Matteo Della Bordella.“The successful objective of this week was not just the repetitions of multi-pitch routes.We wanted to give it to the kids a focus on trad climbing and crack climbing techniques, fundamental for the next expedition to Patagonia, something that not everyone is used to."

Coordinated by Della Bordella himself and led by tutors Federica Mingolla, Leonardo Gheza, David Bacci, Marco Majori and Andrea Migliano, the 15 young mountaineers divided into teams, mainly on the walls of Caporal and Sergent.On Caporal the team formed by Marco Cordin and Giacomo Meliffi and the one formed by Daniele Lorusso, Erica Bonalda and Matteo Sella attempted the free ascent of the famous route "Ithaca in the Sun”.Also on Caporal, Matteo Della Bordella and Luca Ducoli have climbed the little repeated "That New Morning”.Again Federica Mingolla and Marco Cocito moved on "Overhangs of Visions”.At Sergent some roped parties repeated the classic "Cannabis" And "Legoland”.The latter is a route well known by Giacomo Meliffi, who a few years ago succeeded in free soloing the two pitches of the route.Finally, David Bacci and Alessandra Prato tried their hand at “Great Crossing” at the Noasca Towers.A new crag bolted by mountaineer Andrea Giorda was instead fundamental for trying some single pitches.The CAI Eagle Team week also allowed us to name a new climbing area:in fact, several trad pitches have been freed, such as "The Clandestine” overtaken by Matteo Della Bordella and Matteo Monfrini.

Upon returning from the climbs, the evenings were full of ideas.Starting from the meeting with the mountaineer and writer Maurizio Oviglia, who got involved to pass on his mountaineering journey to the young men and women of the Cai Eagle Team.The second evening was instead a real immersion in history of the Orco Valley and Piedmontese mountaineering with the aforementioned Andrea Giorda and Ugo Manera, also a mountaineer and writer.The week was then closed by Enrico Camanni, writer and historian of mountaineering, who told the kids how writing about mountaineering is a fundamental part in the story of the mountain territories, and how this has evolved over time.The training session concluded with the intervention of the national instructors of the CAI Central Mountaineering School, who described the reality of the schools and explained the importance of being instructors, as well as focusing on self-rescue techniques on the wall.

On Friday 19 April, the participants of the third "Workshop" arrived in Valle Orco, which can be defined as a "project within a project", through which the Academic Alpine Club and CAI intend to bring together numerous and promising young climbers, enhancing their skills and competencies.Over thirty (including five climbers) reached Ceresole, with different mountaineering levels:about ten academics, some promising young people met at the CAI Eagle Team selections and about fifteen young instructors from the Piedmontese and Ligurian mountaineering schools of the CAI.

On Saturday and Sunday the participants split up on the various walls with varying success.The wall of the Deserter, opposite that of the Sergent, was dotted with ice stalactites, a situation rarely seen even in winter.The heat of the previous week made the structures sheltered from the sun very humid, and the recent frost armored them in ice.«At the end of the meeting everyone learned something, everyone went home with a more open mind on this climbing terrain that I have personally loved since the beginning of my mountaineering experience», declared Mauro Penasa, president of the Italian Academic Alpine Club .«Seeing so much enthusiasm, no matter the level reached, is truly encouraging, it means that the direction is the right one.I am pleased that the Cai Eagle Team project has dedicated the entire week to these walls, and it is equally satisfying to have been able to organize the last "Workshop" of the project right in Valle Orco".

The project of the Italian Alpine Club and the Italian Academic Alpine Club, coordinated by the mountaineer Matteo Della Bordella, aims to transmit to fifteen selected young mountaineers the technical knowledge and cultural heritage fundamental to becoming interpreters of modern mountaineering.
Photo credit:Pietro Bagnara, Open circle