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Ardito Desio: The secret of happiness
Oct 8, 2004 16: 22 EST
Published Oct 5, 2004
They say that climbers and explorers die young. Well, Italian Ardito Desio died on December 12th 2001. He had traversed the burning sands of Sahara and the frozen plain of Antarctica, led more than 15 scientific expeditions, traveled the world, and climbed the highest mountains. Ardito was in fact the leader of the Italian expedition that conquered K2 with the summit of Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli.
More than forty years after the K2 expedition, Americans John M.Climaco and Chris Breenere climbed a Himalayan virgin peak and named it after him.
In the coming feature series, we will present the life of this remarkable explorer.
A happy man
Ardito the climber, the explorer, the professor, lived his life to its fullest. He squeezed every drop out of it it until the very last moment, and always described himself as a happy man. He died at home, at age 104. He was still young. Young at heart.
From the ruins of Europe to the sands of Sahara
Ardito Desio was born in Palmanova (Udine), a tiny village in Northwestern Italy, on April 18, 1897.
Perhaps one has to live through terrible moments to truly appreciate the good in life. It's then not surprising that Ardito Desio was a master: One of the first facts registered in his biography are the horrors of the Great European War (WWI).
The 18 years old Ardito was an athlete, and volunteered the Italian Army as a cyclist Bersagliere, right at the beginning of the war, in 1915. In 1917 though, he returned to civil life to finnish high school, only to been enlisted again in 1917 as a lieutenant in the Alpine corps.
November 1917 he was taken prisoner and spent one year in the Wegsheid camp (near Linz, Austria) and later in the Plan camp in Bohemia. So, what can a POW do but turn into despair? Well, Ardito took advantage of the situation and… taught himself German!
Traveling professor
Back home he studied in the Natural Sciences College of Florence, where he graduated in 1920. His career was meant to open the gates of adventure for Ardito: Right after getting his degree, he started working for the Institute of Geology of Florence.
Before the year was over, Carlo De Stefani invited him on his first scientific trip, to the islands of the Dodecanneso, then under the Italian dominion. Among its ancient Greek ruins, Ardito realized he was on the right path. In 1925 he moved to Milan to promote himself as a geologist and field researcher.
Dreaming of mountains
In 1925, on assignment of the Italian Geographic Society, he carried out its first journey to Africa. The destination was Giarabud, an oasis hidden in the Libyan Sahara. The desert spell caught him soon, and he become an expert.
But then the promise of a very different land lured his attention: In 1929 the town of Milan promoted an expedition to the Karakorum, sponsored by the Italian Geographic Society and Milan’s branch of the Italian Alpine Club.
The Mission was to follow the trail opened by Luigi Amadeo of Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi, in 1909: In other words, they wanted to climb K2. Ardito saw his chance and focused all his energy on the expedition to come. He had not counted on the budget problem though.
A controversial and amazingly expensive expedition sponsoring Umberto Nobile to the North Pole, reduced the funds and the Karakorum project was delayed. Ardito's dream of K2 was put on hold, while destiny and duty brought him back to the African deserts.
Tomorrow part 2: The treasure hunter
Image of Ardito Desio riding a camel during one of his expeditions to Sahara, courtesy of the Associazione Ardito Desio. The picture is dedicated to sponsoring Italian Geographic Society, and signed in the Lybia Desert in the ‘20s
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