Monviso

Immagine dalla pubblicazione di Montagna.tv — From the publication Montagna.tv, 2021-04-17

Monviso is a massif of the western Alps rising along the main Alpine watershed, in Piedmont; its summit reaches 3,841 metres^[1]. It is the highest peak of the Cottian Alps and is also known as the «Stone King»^[2]. At its foot, at Pian del Re, the Po rises^[1], the river that flows through Turin. Its history with Turin dates back to the summer of 1863: from Quintino Sella's ascent of Monviso came the idea that led, two months later, to the founding of the Club Alpino Italiano, established at Castello del Valentino^[3]^[4].

The mountain and the sources of the Po

The massif is formed mainly of calcschists and masses of ophiolitic rock; its summit walls are steep, cut by wide gullies, and small glaciers nestle in the niches of its slopes, while the eastern side holds plateaus dotted with numerous alpine lakes^[1]. The Po conventionally rises at Pian del Re, at 2,020 metres, a great basin that collects the waters of lakes, snowfields and relict glaciers; just 13 kilometres separate the source from the plain, while the river's entire course measures 652 kilometres, the longest of any Italian river^[5]. The Turin section of the CAI, recounting its own origins, points precisely to the Po, «whose springs flow from the slopes of Monviso», as the «common denominator» linking its history to the mountain^[4].

The name comes from the Latin Mons Vesulus, said to mean «mountain clearly visible»: its pyramid can be seen even from hundreds of kilometres away^[2]. The mountain is mentioned by Virgil in the Aeneid and by Dante in the Divine Comedy^[6].

The Buco di Viso

Along the way to the Colle delle Traversette, which culminates at 2,950 metres, lies the Buco di Viso, considered the first Alpine tunnel in history: a 75-metre gallery that bypassed the final, steepest and most dangerous stretch of the climb to the pass, excavated starting in 1478 over eighteen months at the behest of the Marquis of Saluzzo Ludovico II, in agreement with the King of Provence René of Anjou^[7]. Its purpose was commercial: the Marquisate was seeking a route to trade goods with Provence while avoiding Savoyard duties, especially on salt. Hemp, flax, walnut oil and products from the Saluzzo area and Monferrato passed through toward France; in the following decades the tunnel also saw the armies of Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I pass through^[7]. Temporarily closed during the French Revolution, the tunnel was restored in 2014 with the support of the Parco del Monviso and the Piedmont Region; in 2018 it recorded over 20,000 passages^[7].

The first ascents

The first documented circuit around the mountain was made by the Englishman D. Forbes with a local guide on 1 July 1839: starting from the Guil valley, he crossed the Colle delle Traversette and closed the loop in a single day; in September 1854 A. P. Whateley and H. T. Jenkinson repeated the route over two days^[8]. The summit was reached on 30 August 1861 by the Englishmen William Mathews and Frederick Jacomb together with the Frenchmen Jean-Baptiste and Michel Croz; according to some sources, a group of French surveyors may have climbed it as early as 1751^[3].

On 12 August 1863 the first all-Italian rope party reached the summit: the Biella-born statesman Quintino Sella^[9], the deputy Giovanni Barracco, the brothers Paolo and Giacinto Ballada di Saint Robert, with the guides Raimondo Gertoux, Giuseppe Bouduin and Giovan Battista Abbà^[3]. On his return Sella wrote to the geologist Bartolomeo Gastaldi:

«an Italian party has finally climbed Monviso!»
Quintino Sella, letter to Bartolomeo Gastaldi, 1863

In the same letter Sella celebrated «this splendid mountain, whose summit is entirely ours», turning the ascent into a gesture for the newly achieved Unification of Italy^[3].

From Monviso to the Valentino: the birth of the Club Alpino

According to the CAI, the idea of founding a national mountaineering society was born precisely during that ascent^[9]. The society was formally established in Turin, at one o'clock in the afternoon of 23 October 1863, at the Castello del Valentino, on the left bank of the Po: seventy-two founding members gathered at the initiative of Sella and Gastaldi, and the first president was Ferdinando Perrone di San Martino, not Sella as is often believed^[4]. On 23 July 1905, the CAI inaugurated, by the Lago Grande di Viso at 2,640 metres, a refuge named after Quintino Sella, designed by Ubaldo Valbusa: enlarged in 1927 and again between 1975 and 1979, renovated between 1998 and 2001, it can host about ninety people; according to Montagna.tv it is owned by the CAI of Saluzzo^[10], while the refuge's own website lists the Club Alpino Italiano's central headquarters in Milan as the owner^[6].

Park and biosphere reserve

The area is protected by the Parco del Monviso, a system of regional protected areas and special conservation zones of the Natura 2000 network that stretches from the summit down to the plain of the Cuneo area^[11]. In 2013 the territory received MAB recognition, and in June 2014 UNESCO approved the Monviso Transboundary Biosphere Reserve, the first Italian transboundary reserve: about 400,000 hectares, 86 Italian and 20 French municipalities, and over 300,000 inhabitants^[12].

The Stone King today

The mountain is crumbling as the climate warms. On 6 July 1989, 200,000 cubic metres of ice and rock broke away from the upper part of the Coolidge Glacier; on 26 December 2019 the Torrione del Sucai, at 3,200 metres, collapsed, releasing 60,000 to 80,000 cubic metres of material; in 2022 the Coolidge Glacier was downgraded to a glacieret^[13]. On the evening of 1 September 2026, a major landslide struck the area near the Sella refuge and part of the path toward Pian del Re, in the municipality of Crissolo, in the province of Cuneo, triggering a mountain rescue search^[14]. «Understanding and monitoring these processes is essential to improving the ability of these territories to prevent and adapt to such events», commented Secondo Barbero, director general of ARPA Piemonte^[13].

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