We interviewed the young aspirant mountain guide as a new member of the team.

Giulia Venturelli is a young aspirant mountain guide. Born and raised in the province of Brescia. Since she was a toddler, she has always been close to the mountains thanks to her father’s passion.

It is a passion that has grown with her and that has grown so large that it is always taking more space and more time in her life, so much so it has turned into a real job.

Giulia, it is enough to take a few steps inside your house to understand that mountaineers live there!

It is exactly that, everything here talks about mountains and the trips I have been on, photographs of the walls, magnets on the fridge and the postcards are all testimonials of our trips that we have done over the years. Even my parents when they were younger went to the mountains and for us it is natural to be surrounded by photographs with smiling faces once you reach the summit.

Is it true that there is a dedicated room in the house for all the equipment?

Well yes, over time the laundry room has become the space where each of us put our equipment. The only problem is that now it has become full of skis, boots, crampons, equipment for ice climbing, for rock climbing and ropes that have become hard to part with. I also get attached to things and then I struggle to get rid of them. Can you see this box? It was a little box that I used to enter in when I was little, it had wheels underneath it and I used to be towed around the house. Now I put my quickdraws in it.

While arranging her rucksack and filling up her chalk bag, she told us about when as a child she had written a script that talked about a Sunday on a glacier.

It was a script that was meant to talk about one of our special days and so I described the Sunday that had just passed that I had spent with my dad and a pair of ice axes. I dwelled on the detailed descriptions of the colours of the frozen waterfalls, of how excited I was to climb it and of the joy of spending my time in such a fascinating manner. Nevertheless, the bitterness came the next day, when the teacher handed us the marked scripts and I saw a terrible mark on mine. The motivation for it was that the script was meant to be realistic and not fantasy.

How can you explain to a teacher that a nine year old girl was already able to put crampons on and to use ice axes to get to the top of a blue and silver waterfall?

True! But then if you flick through my album of memories, there are so many anecdotes that come to mind when I think about what the mountain gives to me in all its forms.

How did the desire to make the mountains your occupation come about?

Deep down I believe I have always had the desire in me, I kept an eye on the website of the Lombardy Region for the announcement for the entry exams for the school for aspirant mountain guides. When the announcement was put up I immediately registered myself and from there started it all.

Female mountain guides are a real rarity.

At the course I was the only girl, I was always the youngest, and so it always happened that when we had to make particular requests my course companions always sent me to the front. Despite everything, I had fun and I had absolutely no problems. We are a close-knit group even outside of the normal outings.

Instead, the collaboration with CT is a recent story.

Yes, I became part of the TeamCT a few months ago, but I already feel part of the family. I have been able to get to know the company founder and from there right from the start, I was able to plan a photo shoot at the crag. I have been able to test products and I have had the possibility to give my feedback for the improvement of the products and this is certainly the most interesting part of this collaboration that I am sure will make me grow even more.

Giulia Venturelli

Video and Pictures Giordano Garosio