So you never go alone
Nobody forces us to go to the mountains, which is why hiking and mountaineering are moments of pleasure, of recreation and of great happiness. Although we know that climbing a mountain solo is one of the deepest, most intimate experiences there is, capable of giving us excellent moments of reflection, we are also aware that sharing these moments of pleasure with the right people can be just as revealing for us, and takes nothing away from our inner self and our way of being.
R. Messner himself, a lover of extreme solo experiences, admits that “two is not too many”. Mutual support is priceless. One example among the many that could be given:
“We begin to feel strangely tired, the route seems too long or too difficult. We complain, but a comforting word from a companion is enough to renew our energy, our spirit, even our body. We carry on. Then, suddenly, the roles are swapped... the one who was giving support finds his strength failing... but there is the companion, ready with that same word of comfort that now carries both of them forward...”
It's a dynamic that might seem paradoxical, but in truth it is just the odd mechanics of human psychology; it exists and it is important to know about it, because it can enrich our experiences in the same measure as the difficulties imposed by the extreme environment can increase our wisdom.
Choosing the right partner is not something that can be taught or learnt between the lines of a mountain manual. You meet, you get to know each other, and with time mutual trust and esteem grow. It is a circumstance tied more to your own human qualities and to your ability to build personal relationships. Most of the time it is a matter of lucky occasions in which you find yourselves living the same experiences, at the same moment and with the same passion. So it is at the moment when everything works naturally that we can say that partnership has truly come about: you can rely on each other. We entrust our rope partner with our life, our whole existence, without words and without comment, not as a gesture of surrender but as an instant of perfect synergy.
The key to success in making a partnership work certainly lies in the ability to recognise your own limits, learning to make up for them with your companion's strengths. It is a delicate balance in which there is no point at all in competing, because the priority is without doubt to get home safe and sound.
To quote the well-known American mountaineer Ed Viesturs: “Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory...”
Some talk of the leadership of a single individual over the rest of the group... Leadership cannot be entrusted to a single individual, but rather to the best qualities of each person. Someone will be better at finding the way, someone else will know how to keep a group together. It will be the sum of everyone's qualities that turns all of us into a working, safe synergy.
It will be harder to find partners with technical abilities and mountaineering ambitions similar to ours. The only key is to talk, get to know each other and compare notes on hiking matters, and this should be done partly away from the mountains too, because dialogue above all can open little windows onto the inner world of our companions.
With hiking and climbing companions it is important to share some common principles. In our opinion the most important of these principles is "prudence". The group must know how to calibrate its ambitions to the abilities of the weakest member. This is because if the weakest is not put in difficulty, then the safety of the whole group is also preserved. And finally, along the same line of principle, it is our opinion that, except in very large groups, the members must never split up, even when all the members know the area and the route. This last is a good rule that keeps us from rushing one another, trying to respect our partners' pace, slow or fast as it may be, and from losing sight of each other should the route become more complex and difficult.