Edited by:
redazione
On 17 September 1985, at the foot of the southern face of the Eastern Lyskamm, one of the greatest mountaineering tragedies in the recent history of the Aosta Valley unfolded. Below is the article from *La Stampa* describing the incident.
TRAGEDY ON THE LYSKAMM (17 September 1985)
The mountaineers who died on a face of the Lyskamm, along with an instructor, were all trainee guides. The disaster occurred yesterday morning on the Monte Rosa massif, plunging the entire valley into mourning. This time, they were all young men aged between eighteen and thirty-three, who were crushed at the bottom of the glacier’s terminal crevasse after a 600-metre slide. They died almost instantly, lifted up and hurled to the ground by a mass of ice and rocks along that gully which the locals have given the grim name of the “man-eater”. The victims are Roger Obert, aged 33 from Champoluc, a mountain guide; Corrado Vuillermoz, aged 18, from Valtournanche; Carlo Fiou, aged 20, from Aosta; Pietro Bethaz, aged 25, from Valgrisenche; Piergiorgio Perucca, aged 22, from Saint-Vincent; and Ettore Grappein, aged 29, from Cogne. Two climbers from the same rope team miraculously survived: Hans Marguerettaz, aged 21, from Courmayeur, and Stefano Grivel, aged 22, from Gressan. The alarm was raised by radio at 10.55 am. The small group of friends, having left the Mantova refuge at around 6.30, had set off at a brisk pace to reach the summit. They were in fact just a few metres from the summit when a slab of wind-driven snow gave way beneath their feet, dragging them down. It was a miracle that saved Grivel and Marguerettaz, as the two young men – both experienced climbers – as soon as they felt the snow giving way beneath their feet, drove their ice axes forcefully into the ground, clinging to one anotherone another, whilst their friends slid away down the slope of the ridge. The bodies of the six victims were taken into the small church at La Trinité and laid out on a makeshift bench. The young men were still dressed in windcheaters and checked flannel shirts. (La Stampa)