Club Alpino Italiano

Filmed chronicle by mountain filmmaker Mario Fantin, of the 1964-1965 expedition of the Italian mountaineer Guido Monzino to the summits of Hoggar in the Algerian Sahara with the ascents of Garet el Djenoun, Tizouyag Nord, Saouinan and Iharen. The mountain ranges of the Hoggar desert turn out to be more complex and interesting than most mountaineers suspected at the time.

The film was shot on the occasion of the Italian Geographical Expedition to Karakorum, conceived in 1926 and held in May-August 1929, under the guidance of Aimone di Savoia, duke of Spoleto. The expedition, twenty years after that of the uncle of Aimone, the Duke of Abruzzi, had as its declared objective the exploration of the Baltoro glacier area and explores the possibility of an attempt at K2. The film ends, however, hastily: the prohibitive weather conditions conditioned the production. A young geologist and geographer, Ardito Desio (head of the italian expedition to K2 in 1954), took part in the expedition.

Five young Italian climbers, Paolo Grunanger, Lorenzo Marimonti, Pietro Meciani, Lodovico Gaetani and Giorgio Gualco, members of the expedition organized under the patronage of the Milanese section of the Italian Alpine Club, reached Tamanrasset, in Hoggar, the Tuareg kingdom. From there, with a caravan of camels, they head towards the mountainous volcanic chain of Tahalra, little known to Westerners. During the exploration, climbers will climb seven virgin peaks via very difficult routes and at the same time carry out topographical surveys.