Nives Meroi has spent her life climbing the highest mountains on Earth, not to conquer them, but to explore their meaning.

For her, reaching the summit is never the real goal. It is in the struggle, in failure, and in the quiet persistence of the climb that something deeper emerges.

This is the story of a journey shaped by limits, resilience, and curiosity, where what truly matters is not the top, but everything learned along the way.

Why we climb mountains?


The great Lionel Terray used to say that mountaineers are the “conquerors of the useless.”

In fact, there is nothing on a summit-there is only the point where the Earth ends.

Climbing mountains is also an uneconomical activity for the body, because it is exposed to risks and sometimes extreme energy expenditure. Above 8,000 meters, in what is called the “death zone,” a person - one climbing without oxygen tanks - even if in perfect condition, cannot survive more than two or three days at most.

So why climb mountains?

In my opinion, the story of a defeat explains it better.

So I’ll begin with my first expedition to an eight-thousander; it dates back to the last century.

On the K2

There were eleven of us, and we wanted to climb a partially new route on the north face of K2, the almost unknown side of the “Mountain of the Italians.”

We knew that in such a remote area we would have to face not only the difficulties of approaching the mountain, those of the climb itself, the dangers, the risk of the death zone.

There, for almost two months, we would have been completely alone. Alone and isolated. Without a satellite phone, without communication, without knowing whether the outside world still existed.

For fifty days we would have lived in the world as it once was - and as it will be again, after we humans have left.

After a couple of weeks of trekking, we reached the base of the mountain, and after another month of gradual climbs at altitude, on July 31 we were ready to attempt the summit. In the lead rope team there were three of us: Romano, Filippo, and me.

After a final bivouac at 7,800 meters, we set off at an icy dawn. The difficulties were demanding for that altitude: 70° on ice, grade V on rock. Ours were the first human footsteps to touch that pristine white.

At 2 p.m., having reached 8,450 meters, we discovered that our route ended there: on a tower detached from the wall, 150 meters from the summit.

Back then there were no Google Earth images, and no drones to send up for a look.

I remember the other two shrugged their shoulders and closed the matter with: “Well, we tried.” My reaction was not so elegant.

That was the first lesson the mountain taught me: “Accept failure, without losing heart.”

That feeling that makes us human

It took me quite a while to swallow the bitterness; I just couldn’t understand why it had ended like that: there were only 150 meters left, we were in good shape, it was early, the conditions were good. A cruel joke.

But it was from that very twist of fate that our wanderings among the eight-thousanders began—mine and Romano’s. Not out of challenge or spite, but out of curiosity: the desire to put ourselves back in the game and continue exploring.

Curiosity is something we are all born with, and it never stops prodding us. And when it grips us, we are not afraid to turn our backs on security and set off. Or rather, perhaps the fear is there—the fear of the unknown, the fear of losing our way—but we accept it as a travel companion.

And so we went on, on a swing of successes and failures, and the years flew by.

Expedition after expedition, the mountain gave me other lessons too, useful not only for climbing.

It taught me the economy of movement and thought, it showed me the strength of patience and humility, it gave me the awareness that freedom entails discipline and shared responsibility.

And up there, in the death zone, I experienced the strength that comes from climbing together toward a summit.

Because it is that energy that allowed us to withstand storms, obstacles, uncertainties, until we were able to grasp those moments of possibility that sometimes reshuffled the cards of games that already seemed lost.

And so this is another thing I learned up there: that no achievement is accomplished by a person alone, and that alliance is the strongest formula that exists in nature—at 8,000 meters as at sea level.

Climbing mountains produces nothing tangible; it is simply the pleasure of a simple luxury, an end in itself. But drawing a landscape, singing a song, telling a story—those too are useless luxuries that produce no profit.

Perhaps they serve only to ignite within our souls that feeling which makes us human.