Newsgroup: it.sport.montagna
Titolo: Rahel Maria Liu (1970 - 2004)

Il necrologio che segue è stato scritto dal sottoscritto e pubblicato
in giro per alcuni siti/newsgroup dedicati all'alpinismo. Rahel non
aveva mai postato su ISM (credo) ma aveva parecchi amici italiani,
alcuni dei quali purtroppo portrebbeo non essere al corrente della sua
tragica fine sul Monte Bianco (televisione e giornali non avevno
precisato l'identita della "donna tedesca" morta sull'Innominata).
Posto quindi il necrologio più che altro come servizio nei loro
confronti. Scusate l'inglese, ma non ho tempo di ritradurlo in
Italiano.
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Rahel Maria Liu, a young and talented German climber (who from time to
time posted on rec.climbing) died tragically between Tuesday 24th and
Wednesday 25th Aug. 2004 while attempting to climb the Innominata spur
on the southern (Italian) face of Mont Blanc. She was 34 years old.
According to my sources (I was in Courmayeur when the accident
happened) she had teamed with Edward Allen, 49, a British climber met
at the Bureau Des Guides in Chamonix. On Sunday they had already
encountered trouble - the upper part of the route (rated D+ on the
UIAA scale, but very serious for the grade because of altitude,
isolation and strenuousness) was plastered with snow, and temperature
had dropped significantly. A storm front had hit the area, with strong
winds, heavy snowfall and temperatures down to -40° C because of
wind-chill. On Tuesday morning, worn out by exposure and altitude and
with almost no visibility they had called for help via a cell phone.
Unfortunately, weather conditions had now worsened to the point that
an immediate helicopter lift was impossible. The pair was stranded at
4600m, on the steep snow ridge just below the junction between the
Innominata and the upper Brouillard ridge, an extremely dangerous and
exposed area. Aware of this, the Aosta Valley Mountain Rescue had sent
them (via SMS) the coordinates of a higher but more sheltered place on
the Freney side of the spur. Allen moved to that location and dug
there a snow hole, but Rahel (who reportedly was completely exhausted
and ill) couldn't be convinced or simply didn't have enough strength
to climb up the rope length to the shelter. And so, she bivouacked on
the open on the Brouillard side of the spur, on a position far more
exposed to wind-chill. Having the bad weather subsided a bit in the
night between Tuesday and Wednesday, at dawn (in difficult flying
conditions) the Aosta Valley Mountain Rescue launched an attempt to
save the trapped climbers. With a complicate manoeuvre the first
flight reached Allen (who was transported to the Aosta hospital and
diagnosed with hypothermia) and assessed that Rahel had died in the
preceding hours. As conditions worsened again a second and even more
difficult flight (done using a lighter SA315B "Lama", more
manoeuvrable in strong winds) dropped two guides on the spur. They
reached Rahel and recovered her body, later transferred to the
Courmayeur morgue for the required formalities.
Rahel Maria Liu was a true mountain enthusiast and a skilled climber
with significant Mt.Blanc experience. She had a long curriculum of
repetitions all over the MB massif and the Alps. In 2002, along with
Ivano Gherardini, she had opened a new route on the North West face of
Mt. Maudit, dedicated to the memory of Serge Gousseault, the French
climber killed in 1971 during a winter attempt to open a new route on
the North Face of Grandes Jorasses. In the early part of summer 2004,
she had already accomplished some interesting climbs, including the
Marinelli Couloir on Monte Rosa, the Swiss Route at the Grand Capucin,
and the Grandes Jorasses via the normal route and the Rochers Whymper.
Her enormous drive notwithstanding, she was prudent and frowned upon
the casual attitude of many others, being aware of the importance of
things like acclimatization, meteo and mountain conditions. In a sad
irony, on one of our mail exchanges we had discussed the dangers of
Mont Blanc climbing, and the upper Brouillard ridge had been mentioned
as a potential trap. And so, the circumstances of her untimely death
are even more heartbreaking and puzzling, considering that the weather
in the area had been unsettled for most of the July and August, and
the Italian meteo had long announced a change for worse at the
beginning of the week. Why she ultimately decided against her better
judgement and tried to beat the storm on one of Europe deadlier and
most remote mountain faces will probably remain a mystery.
Besides being a mountaineer, an excellent violin player and generally
speaking very well learned on a wide range of subjects, Rahel was by
trade a research assistant on the Philosophy Dept. at the University
of Tubingen (Germany), and she was passionately dedicated to her
studies on philosophy, religion and aesthetic. She was also very
active on the Internet, being a contributor to several newsgroups,
message boards, climbing oriented pages and with her own web site
devoted to mountaineering. Rahel was a bright, positive person, who
valued independence, energy and enthusiasm, and who didn't shy away
from polemic and controversy, always tempered by acute intelligence
and intellectual curiosity. Her lust for climbing and life in general
was infectious, and everyone who knew her, or even had just the luck
to have exchanged a mail with her will sorely miss Rahel. She will be
not forgotten.
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 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:af53d523.04090...@posting.google.com...
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 aveva mai postato su ISM (credo)
ho fatto un giro sul suo sito e mi ha impressionato la sua attività,
quando accadono queste cose si tende sempre a pensare che accadano agli
sprovveduti,
non è così.
mi spiace per lei e per i suoi sogni,
mi spiace per chi l'amava e la piangerà a lungo,
un bacio, ovunque ora sia.

 un bacio, ovunque ora sia.
la conoscevo - per le sue vicende universitarie. Ed e' triste assai ...
Saluti,
Uli