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To
the "Briefing" they participate, besides us three, the pilot of the
airplane (a Cesena 207 envoy to disposition from Sciscere, delegated
of the I air Club of Aosta), the pilot of the helicopter Blade of
the Elitecnica, Com.te Rossi, Groaz (responsible of peak) and two
collaborators employed to the materials and to the connections
radio; three men of the television troupe Sirio entrusted by the RAI
to document the throwing, would have arrived later the day.
Together we established the program for the next days:
-
Friday
Take-off of the helicopter Blade at the 06.30, for the
recognition on the point of landing; at the 16.00 we would have
predisposed all the materials for the following day, and built the
net;
- Saturday and Domenica, the throwing.
The alarm clock
is for the hours 05.30 and as soon as out in the room I realize me
that the sky is covered for seven eighth to around 3000 feet.
I
phone Plateau Rosà and they confirm me: "Absence of wind and serene
sky."
It doesn't stay us whether to wait that you get up a po of
sun, and to the hours 07,00 of Friday 30 August, the helicopter
takes off with on board us three parachutists and Groaz, all
equipped ones and with the attire and in material alpine necessary.
The Com.te Rossi looks for a passage among the clouds, and after
an uncertain to rotate we succeed in crossing the layer of clouds.
The show is enchanting: under of us a white and boundless sea of
clouds, from which as small islands the tallest tops emerge, to
South, and then the lowland, in which the look loses him.
To West the White Mountain
introduces him imposing, northwestern we have the Dent of Herin and
the Dent Blanche.
In front of us we have the Cervino with
the South wall all black, impressive, not yet illuminated by the
sun. Without the door, in helicopter it starts to be cold, and in
distance I perceive the our according to objective: also it is still
dark and the game of lights and shades it creates an anxious
atmosphere.
I
fear to have exaggerated in to decide to land on top of the Cervino.
And also the Rosa, near the hut Margherita, also being ampler, seen
from it doesn't encourage a lot here me. I  wondered me to thing
you/they were thinking the others two, and I tried to reassure me
that all more al I would not be landed in top.
We
started to glimpse the East wall, all sunny, and then the impressive
slide of the wall North, completely innevata. 
The
moral one starts to climb, I see the places again where I/you/they
have climbed, the you camp out and finally the crest sommitale with
some mountain climber in top. I see the point of landing: I like it.
I am sure to make her/it! I look at the others and I gather in their
expression my same safety. The helicopter still makes some turn.
None of us would feel like going down; but the pilot is very tense
and so we decide immediately to reenter in the airport. We are
enthusiastic, excited and confident. Only the pilot is seemed me a
po incerto…Mah, will see tomorrow!
Returning, sorvoliamo the peak of the Dent of Herin, passes
on the vertical one some shelter Aosta and therefore we try to
reenter in the airport, but the clouds force us to a landing in an
alpeggio near a malga, where we have an abundant breakfast with
polenta and good cans and cheese. After three hours it is possible
to take off. In the Giovanni, Andrew and I, begin late afternoon, to
build the net of 20m xes 20, to put in top.
Meanwhile Greater it
goes to talk to the pilot of the helicopter (he was the most proper
person, you/they had discovered to have friends in common); what has
to tell him is not very "nice": "Or you unload the three that they
serve as base in top, as of accord, or we don't pay you to us." We
decide then to anticipate the throwing of mezz'ora, in how much the
first ropes arrive in top, climbing from the crest of Hòrnli, toward
the 07.00; therefore you/he/she would have been opportune to land
toward the 06.30.Groaz, with the helicopter it would be due to
depart before, to predispose all the equipments (anemometer, smoke,
nets and nails). This material would have been able us to also use
the case in which we had been forced to return climbing.
When
Greater he/she returns in the airport and he/she sees the net, it is
really convinced: "With this we don't have problems anymore." Goio
introduces him to the briefing of the evening; it is very prepared
and brave, it doesn't have therefore problems, and then it trusts
us. A light supper, and then immediately in bed. I was calm, I felt
me sure. The following day certainly waited us for an impressive
throwing, but by now we were all there and he was not able certain
to throw back; and then I told me that to 100m of quota above the
top I would have appraised my position, and in every case, with a
light correction, I would still have had four or five seconds to go
away. This way I met again me to memory the streets of escape,
hypothesizing her various directions of the wind. I knew that if
you/he/she had blown from North, and finding me above the top I/you
was directed me to South I would have entered the zone leeward:
under these conditions, to 4000 meters a very greater fall is had in
comparison to the advancement. This constituted a serious problem,
since the mountain has a pyramidal form, to the base it widens, and
you/he/she would have been easy to remain trapped on some rocky spur
or paretina, and to roll toward valley. I thought that if someone of
us had had to land to valley, you/he/she would have remained "from
dogs" the other ones would not even have had the complete
satisfaction of the succeeded throwing and the common finishing line
succeeded together.
But a consideration allows me to take sleep:
very hardly conditions will be perfect, and therefore it is still
everything to see. The alarm clock rings at 04.30 o'clock, but I was
already awake. Is go suffered on the balcony of my room and I look
at the sky. And' everything serene and I immediately feel me tense,
I don't feel like anymore smiling to think about something different
of it from what I have to do. In the other rooms I feel the other
ones get ready himself/herself/themselves. I am all one po extended.
Also another bridge radio seems me you create a stress in more, and
so I agree me with Groaz that just taken off by the base of the
helicopter, makes a passage, so that it stuffed to feel the noise:
us thirty minutes later we will take off.
They depart therefore the two groups: the first one with the
guide, a help guide and a cameraman for the top; the second group
will make base near a dike in the proximities of the Cervino and
when we will pass with the airplane and we would be next to the
throwing, we will call them and them, already embarked in
helicopter, they will climb for effecting the resumptions TV and the
photos.
With Goio and Greater we make a rapids breakfast and we begin
therefore immediately the exercises of respiraton: a hour of earth
is advisable oxygenation, before operating to 6000 meters. We had
predisposed the day before, a cylinder of oxygen with three nozzles,
following special charts and preparing us the whole material in
order, apiece of us: don't find anything during the take-off
you/he/she would have been disagreeable.
I
finally feel the elicotte4ro, it has thirty minutes of delay, and
this creates me not little uneasiness: we will find mountain climber
in peak, and also the sun will be taller. The helicopter is taken
off to the dark, I think about those that are on board: to Groaz,
that doesn't have a lot of liking for the helicopters, and that a
few minutes before departing have told me: "I do only it for you."
He is not a parachutist but a mountain climber with her "Á."
capital, and it is a worried po; some years ago has done Northerly
the of the Cervino in rope with his/her wife and you/he/she has
suffered a storm going out of it uninjured.
It was to sling him
and over what is normally necessary now, we had in a marsupium pouch
a bomboletta of oxygen of the duration of eight minutes, that had to
be well protected so that to avoid his/her opening for some abrupt
movement; I settle me the elastic one that holds in nozzle, I slip
me the helmet.
We
immediately start there toward the airplane, where three bombolettes
are deposited with suitable erogatori, that regulates the pressure
of the oxygen in base to the quota. The pilot is already on board,
you/he/she has the third degree, but you/he/she has gotten from few
the qualification to the throwing parachutists. Let's tell him that
however it is a normal throwing even if the concentration will be
very superior. 
We
take off at 06.20 o'clock and I remember that the year before to the
same time we were taking off for the top of the White; the
procedures repeat him with the same order, the emotion however it is
not the same one, we are now more experts in this kind of things and
the company to the succession it is less thick than friends. Last
year had been beautiful indeed, everything was developed in a
climate of great friendship, and to make the things with whom want
you it gives greater satisfaction.
We are by now to three thousand
meters quota, and I immediately connect me with Groaz, through a
portable radio, to ask his conditions meteo. The wind comes from
North six knots. Groaz is late a po with the position of the net. We
remain above the valley to take quota, trying not to disturb
anybody, sees the time. Around the show is grandiose, and the sky is
clear and allows us to look at a follow him continuous of absorbed
valleys in a light haze, that reflects the sun in controluce. The
tallest tops detach stately, giving a sense of depth of field to the
whole environment. Greater with the portable radio, on the
aeronautical frequency, it is in contact with the earth helicopter,
ready to decollare,mentre the pilot contacts Geneva I check for the
confirmation of the free aerial space.
I
ask to the pilot to pass to few meters from the top, so that to be
able to check the altimeters: I have one sets of it on the absolute
quota (QNH) and one who I try to reset to level of the top, also
being in airplane (QFE), also knowing that This system doesn't
guarantee a great precision. We continue to time to rotate and to
take, in top there is some difficulties to systematize well the net.
As soon as it spends the time, I feel the need of oxygen to grow:
the tension stà climbing and I apologize me with the pilot for the
commands a lot you bream that the stòs imparting; he understands
that it is a fashion to unload the tension.
The
last, of a series of smoke that turn on in peak to show us the
direction of the wind, it allows me to understand that the things
are changing: the smoke hardly gets up above the top of 100m, it
goes to West direction. I ask the others if you/they have observed
this change and I say to Greater to make to depart The helicopter. I
communicate to Graz that net or no, in ten minutes jump! To the
pilot I ask to bring us to quota throwing. To 6000 ms. I ask to
Greater where the helicopter is, and he/she answers me that it is in
the zone hello for the resumptions to the same quota of the top, but
he/she doesn't want to climb over. I think, with disappointment,
that we had given really a cylinder for the pilot, that however
you/he/she had assured that you/he/she would not have served him. I
had also asked him if before the day had had problems of
governability, since the only point of reference is the horizon,
besides very great and to submit him to the tools can create
difficulty. Everything was burdened from the fact that the
helicopter was a Llama, and that the pilot had the tendency to
bother us with the air produced by the shovels.
However to that point the
resumptions didn't have any importance anymore, and I had asked the
position of the helicopter not to find him/it to us in tail or to a
lower quota during the throwing. I ask a correction of 90° and the
airplane to the pilot it brings him on the vertical one of Plateau
Rosà, in south direction, then 90° to the right, and, immediately
later, the vertical one of Cervinia, others 90° to the right.
"We enter! ", cry to the others. Greater it is on the door to
give the last correction on the vertical one of the top with the
axle of the wind, but it is a disorientated po, he/she doesn't see
the top that is under of us. "You make as before another turn! " and
the pilot exactly performs the manoeuvre; you/he/she is from mezzora
that he doesn't speak anymore.
I am not afraid, I don't think
about the landing in top and even to the show seen by quassù, I
suffer to activate the bomboletta an instant before the throwing,
and to do so that you don't clog him something. We are again on the
vertical, and Greater one it gives a light correction of 20° East,
and then "motor" (Word used before the throwing to tell the pilot to
slow down the airplane), but in this case we exploit the speed of
the airplane for a best opening of the parachute, sees the
rarefazione of the air to this quota.
Goio jumps for first, I
activate the bomboletta, I feel the oxygen go out of the nozzle and
definite jump without emotions as an automaton. Under of me, the
slide of the wall North as I had imagined him/it; I open the
parachute after five seconds. I bring me above the top, but to that
quota the feeling is not had from what it departs draughts the wind,
really because the references orograficis are too much distant: I
have the feeling to be dwarfish, in the middle of the density of
that fluid, and distant from the horizon that trace a great
continuous line, as between the sea and the sky.
I am a stunned
po, as suddenly deconcentrato. I have new information to elaborate.
I see very more aloft than me Greater, moved a lot in there, but
then I realize me that I am me to be in a very side position, and
immediately I put to fire the situation. I bring me sopravento
toward East: it is precisely the contrary one of as I would do in a
normal competition of precision, and that is on the end I will have
to enter with the wind tail.
 I/you/they are hypnotized by the
top, I strive me to look around me to mentally photograph these rare
images, but to that quota the time flies and I starts to
observe Goio that is found to around 300m. under of me: I will draw precious
considerations from his/her manoeuvres.
We had prepared that he
would have had to trace the streets of escape without landing in
top, if you/he/she was not found in good position. It was his/her
first experience in mountain, even if the experience in this case
counts little. In this case it needs to land on the definite point,
and for this Goio it doesn't have problems being a champion of
precision. I observe him/it anchor, and I see that it lands
in top, two meters behind of him the jump of the East
wall.
 They are to three hundred meters
and I feel me to invade from a great energy, that makes me calm; I
don't mistake anything in my accruals, that do him as more and more
narrow in an ideal cone to whose apex stà the landing. I feel the
wind that tries to push me, I put me to the turned beam to South,
and I look at the target on the right. They are instants, I know'
not to be able to turn neither an instant before, neither an instant
I feel too much later me above, to the time I still lengthen a po
toward South. I have the head turned entirely, with the commands to
mean brake, and I decide to turn.  All very instinctively happens.
The peak stà climbing rapidissimamente toward mè, they are to one
hundred meters and I feel not to be wrong; After a fraction of
according to I see with precision where I go to end: on a group of
four climbers, sat on top of to rest. You/they are not looking me, cry
to attract their attention and aspect one reaction of theirs. They
are found really in the select place to land, and they don' t even
move him for an instant, even on application of Groaz. Instinctively
I loosen a po braked her/it, to fall two or three meters longer, but
it increases the speed, the eyes me they open wide him, I get ready
me to the impact. I feel me to the sure one above a forced passage;
from a side the goes down Northerly, and to the left half meter
falls the vertical jump of the South one, I see the spike of rock
against which I soon will encounter me.
The
clash is violent, rest there as I/you had become an everything one
with the mountain, suddenly calm, free, without more fixed nails and
fears to hurt me. I don't have to organize more nothing. The
throwing was not ended yet: I had seen to land Goio a po "short",
but well; "there is still now you Increase", I told me, and it was
as I felt him/it arrive, pigeato as I was on the rock, but I could
not see him/it. Greater it lands on the frozen snow of the wall
North, on the net of rope, its red parachute gets flabby to a meter
in side to me. I try to lift to grab him/it to me, but the feet
don't hold up me. I find a grip and I drag along me toward his/her
parachute. I see other hands that grab him/it, and Greater seized to
the ropes, on top of the
Northerly of the Cevino.
Bepi
Hoffer
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