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A mountaineer from Verrès, he opened over fifty new routes between 1926 and 1933.
Personal details
Name: Amilcare Crétier
Born: 1909 – Verrès
Died: 8 July 1933 – Matterhorn, Italian side
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: university student and mountaineer
Affiliation: Italian Academic Alpine Club, Jeune Vallée d'Aosta
Biography
Amilcare Crétier was born in Verrès in 1909 into a middle-class family from the Aosta Valley. His father, Pietro, originally from Émarèse, practised as a notary in Verrès and owned property and a mill in Saint-Vincent. His sister, Nerina, later married Giuseppe Mazzotti, a writer and mountaineer.
He attended the classical grammar school in Aosta, a school also attended by Lino Binel and Émile Chanoux, and subsequently enrolled at the University of Turin, where theUniversity’s Historical Archive holds his personal academic record for the 1931–1932 academic year. In his youth, he was involved with the Jeune Vallée d’Aoste, a regionalist movement to which historical sources indicate he belonged. In 1933, he was still a university student and a member of the Italian Academic Alpine Club.
He practised mountaineering without a guide: Enrico Camanni describes him as an “amateur”, in contrast to the professional tradition of the Aosta Valley guides, and situates his activities within the transition towards sporting mountaineering, focused on the study and development of routes on rock faces. Between 1926 and 1933, he opened new routes on rock, ice and mixed terrain in the Aosta Valley and the Mont Blanc massif, largely with Lino Binel and Renato Chabod. The total number is reported differently by various sources: 51 according to the CAI tradition, 53 according to later reconstructions such as that by Camanni. None of the sources consulted explains the discrepancy.
He died on 8 July 1933 on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, with Basilio Ollietti and Antonio Gaspard, at the end of the ascent completed on 7 and 8 July along the De Amicis ridge. The rope team fell whilst descending the standard Italian route, the Leone ridge, probably in the Linceul area, below Pic Tyndall. There were no witnesses to the accident: the sequence of events – a loss of balance on snow-covered and icy ground followed by a fall of approximately 700 metres – is based on Mazzotti’s reconstruction and should be regarded as probable, not observed. The three were recovered and buried together in Valtournenche on 14 July 1933. Crétier was 23 years old.
Mazzotti, who later became his brother-in-law, drew on Crétier’s life and notes for two works: one on mountaineering in the Aosta Valley and one on expeditions to the Matterhorn.
Mountaineering exploits
Grivola – 1926 – north-east face, 2 August, with Lino Binel
Mont Emilius - 1926 – north face, 16 August, ascent of most of the face with exit onto the ridge, with Lino Binel and Renato Chabod
Mont Emilius - 1927 – north face, 21 August, first complete ascent, with Lino Binel
Vierge des Dames Anglaises, now known as Punta Crétier – 1928? - first ascent, with Lino Binel
Mont Maudit - 1929 – south-east face, 4 August, with Lino Binel and Renato Chabod
Gran Paradiso - 1930 – first ascent of the north-west face, 11 July, with Luigi Bon and Renato Chabod
Matterhorn - 1931? - west face of Tiefenmatten to the Italian ridge
Matterhorn, Pic Tyndall (4,241 m) - 1933 - De Amicis ridge, 7 and 8 July, first direct and complete ascent, with Basilio Ollietti and Antonio Gaspard
Places and names
Punta Crétier – Mont Blanc massif, Dames Anglaises – formerly Vierge des Dames Anglaises, Crétier’s first ascent
Works
La Vièrge des Dames Anglaises, now Pointe Crétier, Monthly Journal of the Italian Alpine Club, 1931
Mountaineering diary. Climbs in the Aosta Valley 1921–1933, 1993
Bibliography
As a writer
not applicable: no documented critical study of his written work
As a significant reference
Giuseppe Mazzotti, Great Feats on the Matterhorn, Milan, L'Eroica, 1944
Giuseppe Mazzotti, Montagnes Valdôtaines. Storia di una vocazione, Treviso, Libreria Editrice Canova, 1951
Massimiliano Fornero, Amilcare Crétier, Notiziario della Giovane Montagna – Ivrea Section, March 2006
Enrico Camanni, The Middle Ages ofmountaineering, ?