25 July 2008 | Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I waited for the bad misfortune of Nanga Parbat culminate in its conclusion before writing anything about it. This morning has finally managed to save Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer, the two climbing companions of Karl Unterkircher were at the mercy of Wall Rakhiot for almost ten days.

Apart from the few but inevitable queues extraordinary controversy that each firm brings with it (see the ' attack Fausto De Stefani appeared online in the Courier), the EV-K2-CNR Committee is receiving from the dawn of this morning's message of congratulations the way in which they were conducted rescue operations. The crisis unit was set up right at the headquarters of the Committee here in Bergamo, home, which was immediately besieged by journalists and television crews.

The news of the rescue has had significant consequences for me: the peak of sudden and violent access to the websites of the Committee obliged me to an emergency on a firewall that has repeatedly shown moments of weakness. More than 40 thousand sailors in one hour, of which most interested in the large video documenting the entire operation.

Now that everything, absolutely everything has ended, is instinctively question the significance of this story so incredibly human. The death of a little man, not a hero, but a clear-eyed little man swallowed by the monster who had so inextricably linked to his life, a love fatal to the greatest mystery, namely the Mountain and its invisible web of meanings Hidden challenge, elevation, asceticism, life and death.

I was very passionate about this story, and not just because I was involved, albeit indirectly. It impressed me just as the tragedy took place today on Dolent as well as the fatal conjunction of two events. Some things seem mysteriously weave their own pathways to mean other things greater. Or are our eyes to invent these invisible pathways. For the need to make sense of things. For the need to understand.