The Walkable Summit Journal, a climbing temporary installation

The summit book is written proof of heroic deeds in the mountains, it collects captured moments of pioneers and first ascensionists, mountain conquerors, hikers for pleasure and lovers of mountain walks: everyone has already experienced the moment when you reach the destination, the summit. It is a moment full of emotion and wonder, it is characterized by adverse weather conditions or rewarded by a wonderful view and accompanied by a memorable natural spectacle. A peculiar moment, intense, that many capture by writing, leaving the memory right where it was lived, for all those who will reach the summit after them.
Sesto and its mountains. An ancient love affair that over the course of the centuries has repeatedly ensured some thrilling surprises. The striking summits of the Dolomites do not just dominate the setting of the village of Sesto, they have also long been responsible for helping to determine the fate and development of the area.
Each spectacular first climb told of courage, great ambition, mental strength and technical ability – not to mention a certain measure of madness. It is these conquests that have been documented in the books high up in the mountains since the late 19th century. It was 150 years ago that the first peaks of the Dolomites were climbed. To make these moments accessible to a wide range of visitors and to make it possible to trace these complex facets of the entries in the summit books was the mission and the wish for jubilee year “150 years of alpinism in the Sesto Dolomites” and the inclusion of the Dolomites in the UNESCO World Heritage List 10 years ago.
The result is a temporary installation that can be traversed and climbed and shows selected entries from the first ascents of the Cima Grande, Cima Piccola and Cima Dodici from various perspectives and points of view. After the summer of 2019, the installation dissolves again into its individual parts: each element becomes a bench that is distributed over the area of Sesto. In this way, the individual summit moments can still be experienced and walked on.
The elements of the installation are made of 3 long and 2 short boards of local stone pine and a galvanized and blackened steel cube with a metal insert. The inserts are of brass, copper or stainless steel: each material representing a different peak. The inserts have engraved original passages of the summit books and text were chosen by the local archivist. The original texts are also transliterated into different languages in order to make the summit moments readable for a broader audience. For the temporary installation 72 elements were stacked one above the other, forming literally a mountain that could be climbed or passed through. Tension belts were the only mounting parts. Each single element of the installations becomes one bench. Each bench is a unique single piece which after summer 2019 is distributed over the municipal territory and in this way the walkable summit book remains accessible and part of the collective memory of the place and the installation is recycled for a lasting experience of the history of the territory.