Forty-two years, 460 peaks

A different kind of mountaineering record from Switzerland’s largest canton.

Graubünden or the Grisons is Switzerland’s largest and easternmost canton. By mean elevation, it is also the second highest canton: it has more than a thousand summits, of which 460 rise above 3,000 metres. Until recently, nobody had climbed all of the (permitted) summits – until, that is, the feat was achieved by Fadri Ratti, a protestant priest.

The idea of climbing all Graubünden’s three-thousanders originated with another local mountaineer, Ruedi Fischer, who compiled a list (four peaks are out of bounds, as they lie within the borders of the Swiss National Park). Fischer himself, however, was unable to complete the round, as were two other climbers who attempted to climb all the peaks during the summer of 2002.

A native “Bündner” now aged 58, Pastor Ratti (right) has officiated at the Protestant church in Felsberg, a community west of the canton’s capital of Chur, for more than two decades. But it took him longer still – forty-two years – to climb all the canton’s three-thousanders. He climbed about two-thirds of the mountains alone, preferably in winter on skis.

Some summits, though, are technically demanding: there is the 3,332-metre-high Torrone Orientale, for example, which now needs a snowy winter to facilitate an ascent – the glacier that used to serve as an approach ramp has melted away. For the more challenging peaks, Ratti climbed with a guide, Rolf Trachsel, whom he got to know on Gasherbrum I.

For ever and for ever ... mountains of the Grisons
Image by courtesy of Alpine Light & Structure

Back at his workplace, Pastor Ratti’s love of the outdoors has helped him deal with a challenge common to most churches in Europe – a dwindling congregation. As a qualified hiking guide, he has been able to conduct marriage services on mountaintops and baptise children on alpine meadows.

In surmounting all his canton's higher mountains, Ratti has achieved a first. But statistics on height and speed are of little interest to him, writes Anita Bachmann, who interviewed him for the Swiss Alpine Club’s bimonthly journal. “Nobody ever asks me whether I have seen animals on my tours, or what the mountains smell like” he is reported as saying – adding that they smell of mushrooms in autumn and alpine roses in early summer.

References

Summarised from an interview with Fadri Ratti in Die Alpen 06/24 by Anita Bachmann, Ein Rekord der anderen Art: 460 Bündner Dreitausender in 42 Jahren (German language).

Photo of Fadri Ratti: courtesy of Anita Bachmann/Die Alpen.