Federica Mingolla: balance in the mountains and in life

Passion and work. Public life and private life. The mountain and everything else. For climber Federica Mingolla, professional athlete, mountain guide andSalewa Peopleteam ambassador, finding the right balance is not always easy, especially when the line separating one area from the other is so thin as to get lost. To fit it all together requires commitment, patience, and dedication. A few attempts to find the best formula. And also a good deal of compromise, a “talent” that needs to be trained. However, always holding firm to one point that cannot be questioned: to live well and true to oneself. Federica has no doubt about this.

What kind of happiness do we have on our hands, otherwise, if we force ourselves to fumble through days choked with commitments, if we sacrifice all pleasure on the altar of work?

You mentioned earlier the need to make compromises: is this a skill you already had or are you still working on it?

In my opinion, no one already has it: as children, at least in the West, we are used to making no compromises, to having everything we want. Only as we grow up do we realize that life is not like that. Personally, I’m still working on it. Having a passion-job that has to do with being outdoors and on the road all the time, and that when I am at home requires training, it is difficult to find time for everything: for family and loved ones, for the nonsports activities I want to do, for study… I started osteopathy: I needed to get the neurons moving in a different direction. I love the mountains, I chose it and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world, but it’s true that being in the mountains all the time, studying them, hanging out with people who only talk about that… Eventually I also need more, to know and hear different things. I try to handle everything in a sectoral way, without overloading myself. And I don’t need it, honestly: I’m not interested in getting rich, but in living well.

When did you decide to become a mountain guide?

I first thought of this while hanging out with Adriano, a mountain guide friend who has since sadly passed away. In him I saw what I wanted to become, I recognized myself in his approach to life. Being a mountain guide actually has different nuances and everyone approaches the profession differently, however, I liked his way: don’t work too hard, do it only when you really feel like it, make it a passion rather than a daily job. Here, I try to emulate it.

Now that you are well on your way, what do you enjoy most about this work? Does Salewa support you in this as well?

It is a job that allows me to be in the environment I love and gives me the freedom to choose what to do, where and with whom. I like to decide on the route to take with a client, avoiding the classic ones frequented by everyone, but instead inventing something different and less traveled-an aspect that, one might say, is a bit of an old-time mountain guide. Salewa supports me in everything: as an athlete, as a guide…. They even lent me the car for a week when mine broke down! Perhaps my father wouldn’t have done it either. Joking aside, I really appreciate the human aspect of it, as well as the materials. Any brand today has very good products and it’s almost difficult to choose, but with them I had it easy.

There are very few women mountain guides in Italy: in 2022 they were about 2 percent. Why do you think it is still an almost exclusively male profession?

If a woman wants to have children, it is difficult for her to go this route. Maybe you start at 25, take the guide course for 5 or 6 years, then start working to pay back the course…. When you finish, the time for having a family has passed. And then it is freelance work, objectively risky, requiring you to be physically fit. Colleagues and friends who took the guide course with me had their respective pregnant girlfriends at that time: if the parties were reversed, it would obviously have been impossible. Of course, if you are lucky enough to be in a couple and he works, then maybe you can stay home a couple of years for maternity leave. I am not a mother, not yet at least, but I think because of my character I would experience it differently. I don’t care about conventions or what people might think.

A few months ago your book “Fragile as a Rock,” published by Sperling & Kupfer, came out. A title that, you told, is meant to show how you really are. What do you mean?

I wanted to push to reflect on the contrast between fragile and rock. In my opinion it somehow describes how we all are: from the outside we look like a certain kind of person, but then things turn out to be different. For me it was like this: people get an idea of me based on the fact that I am a mountaineer, a strong climber. They think I’m tough, they make jokes. But I also had problems, moments of fragility…. In the book I tell mostly about this, an aspect that is not usually given much attention.

Was it difficult to write about this aspect of you?

Not really. I always wrote notes in which I liked to talk to myself a little bit, a kind of diary. All I did was share these notes with others. I knew there would be people who would understand, and I am glad because I got several positive reviews.

Now that the winter season has started, how are you managing your days and training?

I escaped to the heat to climb: first to Sardinia, now I’m in Arco di Trento. This year I am not ready to ski yet. I don’t want to reopen the topic, but last year accidents happened in the mountains, under avalanches, so, now I don’t feel so much like resuming skiing. If it happens, fine. But we’ll see.

Any new projects in sight for the new year?

I’d like to get back to opening some routes, it’s been a while since I’ve done that, and I definitely want to get more and more into my great passion for long routes, looking for some difficulty. There will definitely be trips related to these goals as well, but I don’t know yet where, with whom or when. I am a last minute person-I decide at the last minute and I don’t like to say it in advance, make announcements, create expectations…. Instead, I like to imagine what I want to do, experience it without anyone knowing I am there, and only then share it with others. It has always been this way, and I don’t want this thing about me to be changed. I need to keep this small confidentiality.