Monte Rosa, in Italian massiccio del Monte Rosa; in German Monte Rosa-Massiv; in French massif du Mont Rose, is a mountain massif in the eastern part of the Pennine Alps.
It is between Italy's (Piedmont and Aosta Valley) and Switzerland's (Valais). Monte Rosa is the second-highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe, after Mont Blanc.
The group is on the watershed between central and Southern Europe.
The Monte Rosa massif has four faces. Three are in Italy: the Liskamm heading above the Val de Gressoney; the Valsesian face above Alagna Valsesia at the upper part of the Valle della Sesia; and the steep, big east wall above Macugnaga in the Valle Anzasca. The Swiss north-western face has several glaciers, with one of the largest Alpine glaciers, flowing towards the Mattertal with Zermatt.
Its main summit, named Dufourspitze in honour of the surveyor Guillaume-Henri Dufour and wholly located in Switzerland, culminates at 4,634 m and is followed by the five nearly equally high subsidiary summits of Dunantspitze, Grenzgipfel, Nordend, Zumsteinspitze, and Signalkuppe.
Some other over 4000 m peaks such as Piramide Vincent, Punta Giordani, and Corno Nero are wholly in Italy.
Monte Rosa is the highest mountain of both Switzerland and the Pennine Alps and is also the second-highest mountain of the Alps and Europe outside the Caucasus.
The north-west side of the central Monte Rosa massif, with its enormous ice slopes and seracs, constitutes the boundary and upper basin of the large Gorner Glacier, which descends towards Zermatt and merges with its nowadays much larger tributary, the Grenzgletscher, right below the Monte Rosa Hut on the lower end of the visible western wing. The Grenzgletscher is an impressive glacier formation between the western wing of the mountain and Liskamm, a ridge on its southwestern side on the Swiss-Italian border.
On the eastern side, in Italy, the mountain falls away in an almost vertical 2,400-metre-high wall of granite and ice, the biggest in Europe, overlooking Macugnaga and several smaller glaciers.
More information: Visit Monterosa
Monte Rosa was studied by pioneering geologists and explorers, including Leonardo da Vinci in the late fifteenth century and Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in the late eighteenth century.
Following a long series of attempts beginning in the early nineteenth century, Monte Rosa's summit, then still called Höchste Spitze, was first reached in 1855 from Zermatt by a party of eight climbers led by three guides. The great east wall was first climbed in 1872, from Macugnaga.
Each summer many climbers set out from the Monte Rosa Hut on the mountain's west wing for one of its summits via the normal route or for the Margherita Hut on the Signalkuppe, in Italian Punta Gnifetti, used as a research station. Many tourists and hikers also come each year to the Gornergrat on the north-west side of the massif, to see the panorama that extends over the giants of the Alps, from Monte Rosa to the Matterhorn.
Though the Italian Rosa as well as the French Rose both mean pink, the name is a false cognate derived from the Franco-Provençal Valdôtain patois word rouése, meaning glacier.
On old maps as late as 1740, the mountain was named Monte Bosa and even Monte Biosa by the inhabitants of Val Sesia. The name Mon Boso which appears in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks very likely designated the same mountain.
From
Zermatt the mountain was formerly known under the name Gornerhorn. The
name gorner is still used for the western ridge that is thrown out from
the main mass (Gornergrat) and the glacier that lies at its foot
(Gornergletscher) but not used for the mountain itself any more.
Nowadays, in German, the Italian Monte Rosa is used instead (Monte
Rosa-Gletscher or Monte Rosa-Hütte).
Monte Rosa cover areas on both sides of the border between the Swiss canton of Valais and the Italian regions of Piedmont and Aosta Valley.
The main summit of Monte Rosa is the Dufourspitze.
On the Swiss side, the town centre of Zermatt is about 13 km south-east and 3,000 m above it.
On the Italian side of the massif are located 9 km north-east Macugnaga in the Valle Anzasca,11 km south-east-south Alagna Valsesia in the Valsesia and 13 km Gressoney-La-Trinité in the Val de Gressoney, respectively, away from the summit. The different sides of the mountain greatly differ from each other.
The Swiss west side is almost completely covered by large glaciers, tributaries of the 57 km2 large Gorner Glacier, descending progressively with gentle slopes and forming a large uninhabited glacial valley. The Italian east side consists of a 2,400-metre-high wall overlooking Macugnaga, whose snows feed the Belvedere Glacier at its base.
The south-east face, culminating at the Signalkuppe, overlooks the piedmontese Valsesia, in Italian Valle della Sesia, and the Val de Gressoney in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley.
The mountain is mainly covered by eternal snows and glaciers, except for its summit which is a rocky ridge orientated west–east, near to and perpendicular to the main watershed between Switzerland and Italy, the river basins of the Rhône and the Po on the Swiss and Italian side, respectively.
The
connecting point between them is the Grenzgipfel right on the border,
and therefore also the highest peak on the Italian side. Thus, Monte
Rosa is the highest mountain in the Alps whose summit is not on the main
alpine watershed, although it is off by only 150 metres.
More information: Visit Italy
The Silbersattel and Grenzsattel are the passes located north and south to the summit. The three main secondary summits of Monte Rosa are, from north to south: the Nordend (4,609 m; north of the Dufourspitze), the Zumsteinspitze (4,563 m; south of the Dufourspitze) and the Signalkuppe (4,554 m, Italian: Punta Gnifetti), all of them being positioned right on the Swiss-Italian border. Other secondary summits are the Parrotspitze (4,432 m), the Ludwigshöhe (4,341 m) and the Vincentpiramid (4,215 m). All of them originally have German names, since even the Italian valleys used to be by German-based Walsers inhabited valleys.
Several perpendicular secondary ridges are connected to the central massif, dividing the glaciers that descend towards the Matter Valley. The ridge called Weissgrat connecting the Nordend with the Schwarzberghorn, in Italian Corno Nero, presents a wall of formidable precipices towards the east, but falls away in a gentle slope to the west.
For a breadth of a few kilometres the upper snow-fields of the Weissgrat lie almost unbroken upon this slope, but as they begin to descend towards the Matter Valley they are divided into two ice streams, the upper Gorner Glacier and the Findel Glacier, by a ridge which gradually emerges from the névé, and finally presents a rather bold front to the glaciers on either side.
The highest points of this ridge, appearing insignificant by contrast with the grand objects around, is the Stockhorn (3,532 m) and the lower Gornergrat at 3,090 m. On their south sides is the lower Gorner Glacier, formed by the confluence of all the major (Gornergletscher and Grenzgletscher) and minor tributaries descending from the north, west and south sides of the central Monte Rosa massif, while on the north side the Findel Glacier descends near to the hamlet of Findeln.
More information: Zermatt
Monte Rosa is one of the high mountains surrounding the 40-kilometre-long Matter Valley south of Stalden. On the southwest to west are Liskamm, Zwillinge with Castor and Pollux, the Breithorn and the Matterhorn; on the north are the Weisshorn and the Dom.
The Gornergrat summit, lying 8 km on the north-west at 3,100 metres, is a popular viewpoint of the massif, since it is accessible by train from Zermatt, using the highest open air railway line in Europe.
Being the highest point in Switzerland, Monte Rosa is also one of the most extreme places. The average air pressure is about half of that of the sea level (56%) and the temperature can reach as low as −40 °C.
Owing to the frequent prevalence of a high wind from the east or north-east, and the slow pace at which it is possible to move when near the top, precautions against cold are particularly requisite when climbing Monte Rosa. The snow line is located at about 3,000 m.
The Monte Rosa tour can be completed by trekkers in about 10 days. The circuit follows many ancient trails that have linked the Swiss and Italian valleys for centuries. The circuit includes larch forests, alpine meadows, balcony trails and a glacial crossing.
It connects seven valleys embracing different cultures: the German-speaking high Valais, the Arpitan speaking Aosta Valley and the valleys of Lombardy and Piedmont.
More information: Love Valle d'Aosta
if all you want to do is to get to the top.
It's experiencing the climb itself
-in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue-
that has to be the goal.
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