Verza: a mountaineering to serve science

Gian Pietro Verza is born in Rovigo on December 1st, 1956. Mountains were not behind his home at all, but even so a natural attraction for mountaineering has driven him into this world since young.
        
He began his professional career as an electronic designer, but right since 1982 he left laboratories for mountains. In 1987 he became Alpine Guide and started to focus both his life and career towards the Alps and the Himalaya. So that the following year he summitted the South face of Annapurna with Benoit Chamoux.
                    
In 1989 he climbed the Pumori, 7,150 metres, in alpine style and in two days, thus realizing the fast climb record from 5,700 metres to the summit in 7 hours. Then, the following year, he came at an important turning point in his career: in 1990 indeed he started his collaboration with the Ev-K2-Cnr Committee, which still today performs high altitude scientific researches. Thanks to his experience in several fields of electronics, he immediately became the Technician Manager of the Pyramid Laboratory within the project. 
                   
From now his enterprises are not only mountaineering, but have also a strong scientific value. In 1992, for instance, he climbed the summit of Everest: the aim of the mission was to determine the exact measurement of the Mount, by means of laser and GPS technologies.  He started leaving from South Col and reached the peak in 6 hours, then stayed there for an hour. 
                            
In 1994 he joined the first expeditions of the EAST (Extreme Altitude Survival Test) project about studies of physiology up to 6,500 metres. Two years later he was at Mount K2 with the “Lecco Spiders” for the new altitude measurement. In such occasion he showed big courage and unselfishness, trying to rescue the mountaineer Lorenzo Mazzoleni: it was an extreme but vain tentative, that saw him to climb up to 8,200 metres all alone and during the night.
                                
In 1997 he was responsible for the scheduling and via satellite videoconference systems for the project EAST 97, where tests of physiology were carried out at 7,500 metres. After performing successfully the tests, he tried the climb of Lhotse where he was forced to renounce the summit, 8,516 metres, only at 116 metres of distance, because of the tiredness due to the logistic effort.
                                         
A year later there was another proof of big humanity. Verza indeed, thanks to his experience in rescue and telecommunications from the Pyramid, he assisted via radio Thomas Humar in his incredible descent from the North-West face of Nutpse after the loss of the companion Janes Jaeglich. He coordinated the rescue team, and so the Slovenian was brought to safety also thanks to his precious help.
                                                 
In 2000 he began member of the del Pyramid Meteo Group and within two years he finished the installation of the innovatory network of five meteo-climatic stations which allow studying the region of high Khumbu, in Nepal, in detail, from the 2,700 metres of Chaurikarka up to 5,050 metres of the Pyramid.
                                      
In 2001 he summitted Aconcagua, on the Andes: he carried out the measurement of the mount, bringing to the summit the optical instruments and GPS in the framework of the Tower project. He stayed on the summit to perform the job for 3 hours, at the temperature of -18 grades.
                                                  
The following year he came back to Himalaya, this time for a very important enterprise for local population. Indeed Verza, with the collaboration of Eco Himal, brought photovoltaic electricity to the hospital of Tshome. The structure lies at 5,000 metres of altitude and 300 kilometres to the north of Everest, in the middle of the Tibetan Plateau.
                                            
In 2003 once again his involvement in social work occurred at high altitude, by taking a group of patients of the Bosis Foundation affected with mental disease to discover the vast African lands from Mount Kilimanjaro. 
                        
During the spring of the same year, within the Ev-K2-CNR project, he activated the first permanent GPS station at the base of Everest, the pyramid’s one. Then, again on the highest mountain of the world, he supported the project of first rescue at the Base Camp, in collaboration with the Himalayan Rescue Association.
                  
And then in autumn he assisted the Sagarmatha National Park for the VHF radio-communication systems. In other words, 2003 was for Gian Pietro Verza a very important year, which came to an end deservedly with the assignment of the prize Grignetta d’Oro for Work and Mountain. The reason of the jury for the prize was: "Alpine Guide, he joined the passion for mountaineering with the research and technology, bringing it to the service of all mountaineers and trekkers at the bases of Everest".
                                        
In 2004 he planned the photovoltaic systems for the Everest and K2 expeditions, and in the latest he also managed the satellite communication systems and contributed to conduct the data processing.
                                         
From 2005 he followed the Ev-K2-Cnr network of climatic monitoring stations including the four sites in Himalaya in the Khumbu Valley and two new sites in Karakorum in the Baltoro region. In the meantime in our country, he was involved in an innovative project concerning the implementation of the first automatic weather station installed on a glacier, the Forni Glacier in the Stelvio National Park.
                                                  
The following year he look after the installation of the new ABC station, which led to the start up of a new monitoring phase of high altitude transport processes of pollutants at the Pyramid site. Furthermore, he installed the Cimel sensor which allows contributing to the Aeronet (NASA) network studies for the Hymalayan area. 
                                                  
Again in 2006 he went to Africa, in Uganda: hundred years after the first climb to the Rwenzori, he started up the monitoring of glaciers of this equatorial massif by installing on the mount the first automatic weather station.
                   
In 2007 he was group leader of a light expedition to Ama Dablam (6,856 metres). Due to dangerous conditions of the mountain and bad weather, the group of mountaineers only reached the 6,000 metres and then was forced to go back.
                      
During this year he continued his engagement in alpine glacier monitoring stations to support the University of Milan, by installing a station on Mount Adamello and another in Viola Valley.
                                               
An intense life spent to serve the mountain, both for the scientific knowledge of such impassable places and for their protection as well as that of people living there. 
                                        
Gian Pietro Verza is a connoisseur of the Himalayan environment: besides the expeditions already mentioned, he carried out also about thirty scientific missions in Nepal and worked for more than 2000 days at altitudes up to 5000 metres.
                                             
His knowledge of problems concerning the rescue at high altitude makes him today particularly engaged in a project for the Himalayan rescue network developed with the international collaboration of Ev-K2-Cnr Committee, Benoit Chamoux Foundation, Himalayan Trust and Himalayan Rescue Association.
                                            
Thanks to his experience of extreme environments at high altitude and the technological applications devoted to the difficulties operative conditions, Verza is carrying out a series of training programmes on the Pyramid Laboratory management, photovoltaic technologies and environmental acquisition systems management.
                                   
Within the technologic supports of Ev-K2-CNR, devoted to the resolution of problems concerning the safety in mountain, he looks after the studying and training on satellite navigation systems for applications in alpine rescue and to support professional activities of Alpine Guides