TRENT. “As he stated Bruno Detassis, in a roped party there is no first or second but only two companions who share the same intense passion for the mountains, creating a single entity. And this is what distinguished the team formed by Cesare Maestri and Carlo Claus, two great mountaineers who demonstrated, with their historic ascents, how friendship and mutual respect are the true cord that unites, to reach the peaks of our dreams , even the seemingly impossible ones.”
With these words Mauro Leveghi awarded Carlo Claus the Gentian for lifetime achievement, yesterday evening, 14 June, dedicated to him and organized by the Sst of Cles in the spaces of the Polo Scholastic Auditorium. Also present were Guido Casarotto for the Italian Academic Alpine Club, of which Claus has been a member since 1958, Sergio Martini, Elio Orlandi and Rolando Larcher.
Born in Lavis in 1926, but soon moved to Cles, Carlo Claus has achieved important ascents in the Dolomites, Patagonia and the Himalayas, alongside sacred monsters such as Cesare Maestri and Marino Stenico. A great interpreter of the artificial era, it was with Maestri that he opened routes that have remained historic, including the one on the South-East face of the Castelletto dei Massodi in 1962, the one on the North face of Campanil Basso in 1965 and the one on the Cima della Farfalla in 1967, all in the Brenta Group.
In 1970 he was the protagonist, together with Ezio Alimonta, Pietro Vidi, Daniele Angeli and Claudio Baldessari, of the climb of Cerro Torre along the South-East face, with which Cesare Maestri opened the famous Compressor route. In the latter part of his career, Claus also participated in expeditions to Annapurna, Makalu and Nanga Parbat.
“An extraordinary mountaineering life, that of Carlo Claus – concluded president Mauro Leveghi – which the Trento Film Festival honors with this lifetime achievement award, which, together with the one awarded in 2019 to Cesare Maestriwants to express gratitude for having ensured that the climbs carried out by two people who loved the mountains became everyone’s heritage”. CL
