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ABOUT US

With its 21 four-thousand-metre peaks, Monte Rosa has fascinated explorers, mountaineers and travellers for centuries.

Its name, deeply rooted in ice and glaciers, already tells the story of this mountain's nature: powerful, luminous and essential.
It is here, nestled among these valleys, that the history of the Gressoney Mountain Guides was born.

With its 21 four-thousand-metre peaks, Monte Rosa has fascinated explorers, mountaineers and travellers for centuries.

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Our story

1451

Monte Rosa appears in some of the earliest written records as one of Europe's highest and most majestic mountains.

1778

A group of mountaineers from Gressoney reaches the Colle del Lys, marking the exciting beginning of the exploration of the massif.

1819

The first ascents of the peaks of Monte Rosa marked the beginning of an exciting new era for Alpine mountaineering.

1877

The CAI conference in Gressoney marks a key moment for the development of modern mountaineering.

1893

The Gressoney guides accompany Queen Margherita to the inauguration of Capanna Margherita, the highest mountain hut in Europe.

1902–1911

New routes and climbs mark a period of great technical development and mountaineering spirit.

1963

The Gressoney Guides Association is born, ever since accompanying nature and hiking lovers on their journeys through the Monte Rosa mountains and across the globe.

Mount Rosa

Monte Rosa, known by various names over the centuries, appears in the oldest documents as Nelkron or Nelikron, meaning “crown”.

But it is to the ice — or rather to the glacier — that it owes the origin of its name: Rosa derives from the Longobard word Hrosa, from which Roise, Roises, and Royses, meaning “ice mountain”.

As early as 1356, Piero Azario described it as the “mountain of Boxeno that towers over all the mountains of Lombardy and from which snow and ice have never retreated since the origin of the world”.

In 1451, Pietro Biondo referred to it as “Monte Boso”, the highest in Italy, constantly snow-covered and inaccessible.

Leonardo da Vinci, too, in the early sixteenth century, was struck by its grandeur and wrote in the Codex Leicester:
“And this will be seen, as I saw it, by anyone who goes atop Monboso […] and I saw the air above me quite dark, and the sun striking the mountain was far brighter there than in the low plains…”

The first ascents

The first documented ascent dates back to mid-August 1778, when a group of young mountaineers from Gressoney — Valentin and Joseph Beck, Joseph Zumstein, Nicolas Vincent, Sebastian Linty, Étienne Lisco and François Castel — reached the Colle del Lys (4,178 m), naming the peak the Rock of Discovery.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, it was again local inhabitants of Gressoney who conquered the first peaks of the massif: in 1819, Nicolas and Joseph Vincent climbed what is now the Vincent Pyramid, while Nicolas Vincent and Joseph Zumstein reached the Zumstein Spitze (4,561 m).

The birth of mountaineering

In the second half of the nineteenth century, with the first organised ascents of the great Alpine peaks, modern mountaineering was born.
This change profoundly transformed life in the Monte Rosa valleys — Gressoney, Ayas, Alagna — leading to the construction of the first mountain huts and hotels, and to the birth of new professions.
This was how the roles of porters and mountain guides came to be.

Gressoney and mountaineering

On 4, 5 and 6 August 1877, Gressoney hosted the meeting of the newly formed CAI, founded by Quintino Sella in 1863.
Among the participants, the Abbé Gorret stood out—a symbolic figure of Monte Rosa, who famously said with irony: “The best speeches at the dinner table are those that are not made.”
In 1893, the guides of Gressoney accompanied Queen Margherita to the inauguration of Capanna Margherita, the highest mountain hut in Europe.
The great ascents
Between 1902 and 1911, the Gressoney guides were the protagonists of magnificent mountaineering exploits:
1902: first ascent of the south-east face of the eastern Lyskamm
1903: opening of the Filder route
1907: first winter ascent of the Perazzi ridge and Dufourspitze
1911: first ascents on the north face of the Lyskamm and the south-west ridge of Castor

Today

The Gressoney Mountain Guides Association was founded in 1963 and has since been continuously exploring and guiding on the peaks of Monte Rosa and around the world.