Born in Wörgl, Austria, in 1955, Mariacher began climbing when stiff-soled mountaineering boots were the norm. As a child, he and his brother, Rudi, 12 years his senior, were raised in a traditional keep-your-head-down and work-hard manner But, as he recalls, “I had total freedom as a kid. After school, I would just leave with my bicycle and go to the woods and play trapper, or explore canyons from the riverbed to the top, disappearing until dark.” 

When Mariacher was nine, he went climbing with Rudi, who had been out a few times with the Austrian Alpine Club. Armed with four carabiners and a borrowed rope, the pair climbed Christakante (5.6 A0) on the Fleischbank, Heinz “securing” his 175-pound brother with a hip belay. Rudi did not take to climbing, but Heinz did: at 11, he pedaled his bicycle 30 kilometers and then free-soloed a 5.8 on the looming peak on Rofanspitze a 1,100-foot face requiring a demanding uphill hike just to reach the base of the wall. By the time Heinz was age 16, climbing had become a significant focus, and to no avail, he tried to find partners through the Austrian Alpine Club. But the traditional mentality of climbing in heavy boots with aid-ladders did not suit the young man’s free-ranging style. Instead, he continued to explore climbing by himself, soloing, or with the occasional partner. By age 17, Mariacher had soloed the most challenging routes in the Kaisergebirge, his home mountains—at times using a rope, belay, and points of aid (pulling on pins), but mostly free soloing. In fact, Mariacher would sometimes stop to “remove pitons, as the routes were overprotected, and I could use these pieces later for new routes.” 

A year later, Mariacher began to adapt this spirit, of moving as quickly and freely as possible, to the intricate faces of the Dolomites, where the [ominous,] walls of the Dolomites. In 1974, at age 18, Mariacher linked the Cassin (5.10c A0; 500 meters) and Comici (5.10c; 500 meters) on the Tre Cime in under four hours. On the former he looped a rope through two fixed pitons, knotting the rope end for a pseudo-self-belay and pulling on two pitons on the hardest move “because there was a big, loose block and it was quite scary.” On the latter, he went ropeless and free. He went on to solo Lacedelli (5.10 A0; 500 meters) on Cima Scotoni, self-belaying on the first pitch, and [then] soloed the Vinatzer (5.10a; 800 meters) on the Marmolada, in 1975 at 19; using a rope on only the sixth pitch for a self-belay by fixing a loop of rope through two pitons. 

“To me, climbing has always been about moving light and fast and enjoying the physical experience, not just conquering a face or mountain at all costs,” says Mariacher. His less-is-more approach marked a major break from the traditional, heavy-handed way of Dolomite climbing, and shook the scene to its core. His friend Hoette finds Mariacher’s ethos especially remarkable given the notorious rock in the range. “The rock is complete brittle crap; a hold could break off in your hand at any moment,” Hoette says. “Honestly, it’s lucky he didn’t die in those early years of soloing. He wasn’t pre-inspecting routes or reading topos and books; he would just walk up to the wall and start climbing.”

In his early 20s, scaling back his job as a land surveyor, Mariacher took up summer residence in his car and moved to the Dolomites. His style of climbing and way of living were an affront to the local ethics; his notoriously late starts and casual approach shook their entire foundation. Mariacher wore brightly colored homemade clothes, feathered hats, and John Lennon glasses, “a rebellion against the tradition of the boring brown and grey worn in the mountains in those times,” he says. Within his rebellion, however, were also strict rules: No bolts, no resting or pulling on gear (a development after his early days), and only climbing ground-up, even if it meant bailing to come back another day, all rooted in a desire to “test my limits, not the limits of gear.”

Following this ethos, Mariacher put up numerous routes in the Dolomites throughout the 1970s and 80s. Due to the lack of bolts, sparse natural protection, and runout cruxes, these routes are difficult to translate into today’s modern grading system of technical moves, but many have stood the test of time as masterpieces. He is most associated with the Marmolada and its 900-meter south face, where he opened 12 new routes between 1977 and 1982. His collection here includes still rarely repeated lines such as Abrakadabra, the first 5.10d on the wall, in 1981, and Tempi Moderni (5.11a; 900 meters), a masterpiece that as he explains is, “a line I viewed as the last hope for the classic idea of free climbing, where a route was put up ground up without pre-inspection, all gear was placed on lead, and although pins could be used for protecting a hard move hanging on them was not acceptable.” This was an accomplishment undertaken with Luisa Iovane, whom he met while climbing in 1978 at Passo Sella, in 1982. Iovane in her own regard, was an excellent alpine rock climber and went on to become one of the best sport and competition climbers of the era, with 8 Italian Championship titles, international podium finishes, and ranking second in the 1989 Worldcup behind Lynn Hill.

 “I was 17,” recalls Iovane. “I had already had very outstanding partners, but he was by far the best climber and the fastest. And he didn’t mind me climbing in shoes with smooth soles and without a helmet, because he did too. I could happily fill pages and pages of my climbing diary with our ascents. After the first summer, though, I also had to accept the fact that sometimes we kind of ‘wasted’ a perfect-weather day with an unsuccessful attempt on a new route, just because of his strict ethics.” Referring to the couple bailing from routes, forced to return another day, when a move or sequence could not yet be unlocked free, or without bolts.

Yet by 1980, after a trip to Yosemite with Iovane to climb Half Dome, the Nose, and Salathé Wall, Mariacher reconsidered the use of bolts. He says, “In Yosemite, I saw climbing as a sport, and in a whole new way for the first time. John Bachar was showing off on Midnight Lightning, and Ron Kauk impressed us with crazy moves on a bouldering traverse. I came back to the Dolomites and did Abrakadabra and Modern Times [Tempi Moderni]. After that, I decided to dedicate myself to sport climbing, because it was clear to me this was key for climbing harder in the mountains, so I went to Arco and started developing routes.”

In 1981, La Sportiva approached Mariacher about becoming a sponsored athlete and to help them develop a new rock shoe, both rare opportunities at the time. Although La Sportiva had made a name for itself with its lumberjack and mountaineering boots, the then-53-year-old company had not yet been able to break into rock climbing. Their first shoe, the Yosemite, released in 1979, had failed to catch public attention.

Up to this point, climbers primarily used mountaineering boots or Edmond Bourdonneau’s smooth-soled Super Gratton rock shoes (aka “EBs”), sometimes sized so small that a plastic bag was required to slip your foot in. However, Mariacher had always had a passion for testing different, random, non-climbing footwear on the rock, including models like the gummy-soled Italian Superga street shoe, which he admits he wore “simply because they looked cool on Dolomite big walls.”

Through him, La Sportiva released its second rock shoe, the Mariacher, in 1982. The purple-and-yellow high-tops took the European market by storm. Mariacher had chosen the midsole and worked on the last shape and rubber, which he figured out by testing different ideas on rock. “I would then come back, and we fine-tuned the stiffness, tension, and volume,” he recalls. The result was a cotton-lined suede upper wrapped around a three-millimeter leather midsole and finished off with a smooth rubber outsole. The cotton lining and softer leather made the Mariacher leagues more comfortable and sensitive than older rock boots.

By 1984, the shoe had reached North America and officially garnered a global cult following, going head-to-head with the Boreal Firé, released in the States in 1983—and the first rock shoe to incorporate a sticky-rubber outsole. The Gunks climber Russ Clune recalls climbing in the Mariachers after Heinz gave him a pair in 1985 in Italy. “When I got back home to the Gunks, I started using the Mariacher and loved them; the rubber was almost as good as the Firés, and they were better for edging for sure,” he says. “It was the fit that won it for me, though. It was no secret that the Firés weren’t a great-fitting boot, and the Mariacher definitely fit better, at least on my feet. I used those boots for the highest-end soloing I ever did and would ever do.” Clune that year climbed the Gunks testpiece Super Crack (5.12+) ropeless.

Mariacher got to release his long-awaited slipper, the Ballerina, in 1984. Although perhaps too far ahead of its time in terms of softness, this model marked the first slip-on climbing shoe, as well as La Sportiva’s first slip-lasted design. In contrast to the traditional board lasting, in which a shoe’s upper is stretched over the last–a 3D footlike shape–and then fixed to a stiffer material (the board), which is then attached to the midsole and outsole, slip lasting utilizes a sock-like upper. This stretches

around the last, with the midsole and outsole attaching directly to the upper. While both techniques are still used today, the introduction of slip lasting allowed for softer, more sensitive rock shoes—and more dexterous footwork.

Shortly after the Ballerina, the Mega arrived in 1986. It had a more asymmetrical toe shape and a downturned form, letting the climber dig into small holds. The Kendo came out in 1988, introducing tensioned slingshot rand. “Before these shoes, the rand went around the bottom of the shoe like a mountain boot, put there to traditionally protect the upper and stitching. But without anything to lock your foot in place, your heel would slip up, especially when front-pointing,” says Mariacher. “So I asked the guys to put the rand above the heel. This has been on every shoe since.”

Kurt Smith, who began climbing for La Sportiva in 1991, recalls a leap in performance (e.g., his first 5.13b onsight) from the Kendos—though there was a price. “The slingshot really crammed your toe into the toebox, giving you a new level of precision; this allowed you to feel the rock and stand on holds better, with power in your toes. Before this, you just blindly put your foot on and hoped it held,” he says. “The fit hurt more than anything else, though.”

In 1991, Mariacher spent eight months developing the Mythos, a shoe that 30 years later remains a go-to for edging and technical face. Alex Huber, the pioneering German free climber, is a diehard fan.

“I climbed almost entirely with the Mythos even though you would see me on many occasions with other shoes—this was mostly because these were then the new designs which should get promoted,” Huber says.

In 1993, at 38 years old, Mariacher transformed from athlete and designer to the vice president of R&D and a shareholder in La Sportiva NA. He felt “too old to keep up with the athletic evolution of sport climbing, and I wasn’t interested in playing the mountain hero to extend my athlete status for another decade.” Keeping the focus on shoe design in Italy while growing the brand in North America, with two other business partners, Colin Lantz and Ed Sampson, Mariacher continued to introduce performance shoes like the Miura and Testarossa.

In 2005, Mariacher parted ways with La Sportiva with the idea of dedicating more time to climbing and hiking in the Dolomites. He was soon offered a position at Scarpa though, a then 67-year-old footwear company known for its mountain boots and telemark and ski-touring boots. Lured by the shoe factory in Asolo, Italy, and the chance to revamp the brand’s climbing shoes, Mariacher joined up as Rock Shoe Category Manager. He says, “Designing and testing shoes is fun; I still had a lot of ideas, and I knew rock shoes had not yet met their full potential.” In what he describes as “the natural progression of knowledge and future wants in shoe construction,” Scarpa in 2006 released the Mago—an asymmetrical, semi-stiff steep-rock shoe. Mariacher then began playing, developing entire shoe families (with matching lasts) that offer varying degrees of smearing, hooking, and edging fluency—e.g., the Instinct line. Nina Williams, a Scarpa athlete using the Instinct LV to project the radically overhanging Simply Read (5.13d) in Rifle, Colorado, says, “There is something special about the toebox. I can see a small foothold, and all I have to do is aim and the big toe then guides the point of the shoe right onto the hold.”

Mariacher still works much as he originally did in 1981: He comes up with a concept of materials, shapes, and lasts, has a prototype assembled at the factory, and then climbs and adjusts. Testing is typically at his secret crag, where he can utilize specific routes and footholds as gauges. While Mariacher is known for his fluid, natural climbing style, when he is testing, he says, “My mind is not turned off as it normally would be. I am instead climbing with more awareness on how each hold feels, and I’m fully aware of what I am doing with my feet to get feedback.” With this feedback logged mentally, Mariacher returns to Scarpa to work with the pattern makers, dissecting the minute details and fine-tuning. As he puts it, “This is a process I could continue forever because there is always something to make a shoe a little better”—though at a certain point the shoes need to go to market.

“As long as I can keep testing my designs and through my own knowledge understand what needs to be changed and adapted in the future, I will keep working on climbing-shoe projects,”

Mariacher tells me. As we watch the weather clear outside his kitchen, we make plans to climb at his secret crag/testing grounds as soon as the rock dries. There, he’ll slip on a pair of unmarked prototypes and float up a sparsely bolted 5.12d, returning to the ground to examine the shoes in his hand, quietly making a mental note for some future change.