Mi chiamo Giuseppe, ed ho 53 anni, vivo nell'immediata periferia di Perugia. Mi sono avvicinato alla montagna molto tardi, infatti avevo circa 35 anni quando, parlando con un caro amico, decidemmo di cambiare meta per le nostre ferie estive: montagna anziché mare! Da allora è stato "amore" vero e non ho più smesso di frequentare sentieri, creste, ferrate, ghiacciai e pareti verticali, sempre in sicurezza ed entro i miei limiti tecnici e fisici.

Anche l'arrampicata, di conseguenza, è "arrivata" molto tardi (il primo corso di arrampicata l'ho frequentato solo quest'anno,anche se con un "guru" come Paolo Caruso, dopo 2 anni da autodidatta o poco più), ma quell'essere legati, come nelle cordate su ghiacciaio, ti fa "sentire" ancor più il legame che si instaura tra te e l'"altro", rendendoti responsabile non solo della tua vita, ma anche della sua vita ed imparando a fidarti di lui al punto che viene a crearsi  un legame talmente intenso da superare qualsiasi ostacolo, anche al di fuori dell'esperienza alpinistica e di arrampicata.

Quindi, come potete constatare, la mia esperienza di appassionato di montagna non è eclatante né piena di exploit degni di essere annotati sugli annali della storia della montagna, però dagli anni 90 sono donatore di midollo osseo. Divenuto, infatti, donatore di sangue negli anni 80, in occasione di una delicata operazione chirurgica di un vicino di casa, poi donatore abituale, nel tempo sono venuto a conoscenza di quest'emergenza sanitaria dovuta alla mancanza di donatori.

We were in Madagascar, during one of our rare days of rest, and Adam had already climbed Tough Enough. While rested doing nothing at all Adam was doing pull-ups on a raft in the roof of our hut.We were discussing bone marrow and I could see he was curious to know more about the topic. “You take a simple blood test and then you are registered in the world wide potential bone marrow donor data-base and you then remain available until you become 55 years old, for anybody who may need a bone marrow transplant compatible with yours. The possibility of the donation actually taking place are very very low because compatibilities are rare, but at least your are there, ready for anybody who might need your help regardless of who or where he is in the world.

Adam was gazing at me, with his one thousand billion neurons that sometimes seem to be elsewhere but actually are always there, focused on the discussion.

“And what happens when a compatible donor is found?”

“Well, you’d be a lucky man! You’d know you were saving somebody’s life. Some bone marrow is grafted from your hip bone, employing either local or total anesthesia. In 40% of cases instead, a peripheral blood graft is sufficient, taken from the veins of the arm. What is taken from the donor is reformed within 10 days.”

“Uhm, it sounds easy. And why did you decide to do it?”

“Eh…I am a climber within, Adam, and for many years I have been at the centre of my own dreams. Climbing gave me, and still does gives me a wonderful life. Often, this situation made me live as an individualist but there comes a time when you want to make also other people, dream. I am here in Madagascar and I enjoy being a belayer for you and not only because you are Adam Ondra. Well, being a bone marrow donor is a bit like stopping the rope for somebody who is about to fall, and maybe you’re the only one capable of doing this…”

Adam looks at me, and as if to apologize says: “ But I am totally focused on my life as a climber…” “And rightly so! You are 17 years old and you climb the way you climb! Thankgoodness you are concentrated! But it i also becasue of this that one becomes a donor, because at times, we climbers, and these days not only us, forget that outside of our personal dimension there is the whole world, there are other people. You see, becoming a bone marrow donor is like taking a homeopathic pill against your individualism, a natural medicine that gives us a social conscience.”

Pietro Dal Pra was born in Vicenza in 1971. His love for the mountains began as a child with outings with his parents, and he took his first steps on the rocks with his father in the Dolomites. He started serious rock climbing not far from home, amid the cliffs of Lumignano, and thanks to his whole-hearted passion and certain talent, was able to face extremely difficult sport climbing from a very young age, some of the most demanding climbs taking place in the mid-1980s not just in Italy, but on the well-known rock faces of southern France.

Once he had finished his schooling, low altitude sport climbing was no longer enough for the young Pietro and his need to move and breathe in the wide open spaces took him to the faces of the Dolomites and the Alps, and so as to ‘live’ the mountains, he became a professional alpine guide at the age of twenty-one. Alongside his professional commitments, Pietro continued to frequent the mountain faces and put his signature to some of the most outstanding climbs in the Dolomites - in all manners of styles, both alone and in company, summer and winter, at times as a ‘first’ or as a repetition of important itineraries. Outside the Dolomites, Pietro has ascended faces of tremendous difficulty from Patagonia to North America.