Maybe peoples’ true selves come out in the tensest of moments. At least that’s the feeling I had in Vallée Blanche that day, hanging from a crest under the l’Auguille du Midi, 3777 metres high, shooting photos of the M4810 team as they were reaching the top after a long, steep, icy crest that tested their abilities.

At a certain point, I see Valentina B. through the camera lens.

Behind her dark sunglasses, when she lifts her head to look at how much is missing, I encounter a gaze that almost scares me: it seems to launch a flash of energy loaded with tension, strength, excitement. For a moment I have the impression that an avalanche has started in front of my eyes, but that instead of slipping downhill, it’s climbing – in the form of this tall and lean girl.

Then she realises that I’m photographing her, and her face opens into a worn out, but proud, smile.

I was about to understand the reason for that gaze: within that fountain of energy that is Valentina, a moment of incredible stress was underway. The climb was really testing her. 

“I was panicking. I think that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was tied to other people with the rope, I would have been stuck there. I couldn’t wait to get to the top. That was my only thought, as if thinking it harder would make me reach the top more quickly.

Height isn’t really my thing, I realized that much at Pointe Léchaud…”

I remember it well. I was just behind her, and in a pretty exposed spot, she had gotten stuck. I could see her getting agitated and I realised that… she wasn’t hooked on to the safety rope. Panic had the best of her for a second, but she then managed to clip her carabiner to the rope that kept us secure along the wall that we were climbing. I could see from her face that it was a stressful moment for her.

Up to now, she’s overcome every challenge.  But I wasn’t sure that I would see her name among the candidatures for the Mont Blanc. But there it was: the first woman (as for what regards the alphabetical order, at least) on the list.

Aren’t you worried, given the challenges we’ve had until now?

“Are you kidding?! Of course, I’m terrified. But you know what? I also know that I would never forgive myself for not trying. It’s a one of a kind opportunity for work, for the company that welcomed me, and for myself. One of those trains that you just can’t miss, one of those stories that I could recount to my grandkids. How can you not attempt the climb if you don’t have objective impediments?”

Of course, how could I think otherwise? In the end, you can’t stop an avalanche, never mind when it’s strong enough to move upwards.

It’s true, Valentina really can’t step back, seeing how much she pushed to be part of the project when, for timing reasons, she should have been excluded. She had joined Methodos as an intern when the project had started and, for obvious reasons, interns could not participate in M4810. When it came to getting a contract, she didn’t lose any time: she put participating in this high altitude Change Management project among her top conditions. 

“No, come on. But I’ll tell you that I didn’t hide my thoughts on it. Ever since I had joined Methodos and found out about the project, I thought it was amazing, as an experience and as a company initiative, and that I wanted to participate at any cost. 

Actually, I probably didn’t really give it proper thought back then. It was so beautiful, innovative, and unique that I didn’t stop to think if I was capable of it, or of how difficult it would have been. My enthusiasm was at its peak, I even went to speak about it with Filippo, the CEO. Only after getting the ok, and having participated in my first outing at the Grigna, did I begin to understand what I was getting myself into. But I still think now what I did then: I can’t not try.”

Who knows what someone so exuberant and explosive could take away from an experience like this? Someone who took just two days to decide to volunteer on her own in Sri Lanka. Maybe the mountains calm her, like they do Sabrina?

Or maybe not, since she laughs when I suggest it…

“Calm? Me?! No, unfortunately not. It actually agitates me. Maybe the thing that most surprised me until now is understanding that there are limits.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m convinced of the power of mindset, maybe even too much. I always kind of thought that those that didn’t manage to reach their own peaks in the end don’t have a strong enough motivational push. Then I realised it’s not so black and white. There are limits, and we need to respect them. The real challenge is distinguishing the ones we impose on ourselves unnecessarily, that we need to overcome, from the physical ones, that are just part of who we are. A bit like what Alessio always says.

I apply this point of view also to what happened to me in the past. I was never a mountain person if not for skiing – my life was basketball: I started playing at the A2 level when I was 14 and from then on, there wasn’t room for anything else in my life (other than school, of course). Then, I tore my ACL. Once, twice… then a third time. It became more pain that pleasure at that point. I finally came to the conclusion that I had to take a step back and give up that world. It took a while to rediscover myself, and, really, to reinvent myself.

It’s weird, basketball has nothing to do with mountaineering: it’s a quick sport, where an action lasts 24 seconds and where satisfaction is immediate, no infinite waiting times – a total team sport. It’s basically the complete opposite. Anyway, my condition taught me, even before the mountains, the value of effort in the long term: recovering three times from a torn ACL is a life lesson in its own way.

But what I really bring with me when we’re up there reaching for the peak is the sense of teamwork. No matter how strong my desire to get to the top may be, I would never be able to leave a team mate behind or not wait for the others.

In the end, for me, the point isn’t reaching the top. It’s the experience itself, the extraordinary multi-faceted challenge that we’re facing together: that’s the greatest push.”