There are people who leave footprints of unique beauty.
Pale's Hermitage
Marco Fortini was one of my first climbing mates in Pale, during the Eighties.
He began to climb 3-4 years after me, with me and my friends. He was immediately hooked and soon showed himself to be the strongest of all, and the most courageous.
He started to travel. He left for Finale, for the Verdone Gorges, then he came back Pale and reported all the new things that were happening outside Central Italy.
And so it was that he became a reference for us and in a few years, he radically changed the way of climbing in Pale.
Coco Chanel, aperta da Marco Fortini
Paola Di Giacomo
Paola Di Giacomo
While we dedicated ourselves mainly to mountain climbing, Marco was improving his technique and was trying to set and climb increasingly difficult routes.
But Marco was not interested in the difficulty for its own sake. He was an aesthete, a demanding man. All the routes set by him have a well-defined style.
All of his routes are continuous. He wasn't trying, like me, to climb as high as possible, to emulate the mountain climbing. He was only interested in climbing (and setting) continuous routes. He preferred a short continuous route to a long but not continuous one.
All of his routes are very technical: he could see the most mysterious cruxes of the Pale's rock walls.
You'll never find a bouldery move or a burly sequence in his routes.
Frullato di Cocco, aperta da Marco Fortini
In addition to great courage, he had an uncommon gift, a unique perspicacity in setting hard routes without renouncing his aesthetic credo.
Gascon, outgoing, it seems that he was afraid of almost nothing. There was like a hard shell underneath his skin, and we all in Pale obeyed him without stopping to think.
Today Marco has gone.
Rest in peace.
Commenti
verba volant. le tracce (e gli spit) restano. grazie sergio per questa preziosa testimonianza.
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