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| Monte Rosa - Dufourspitze | |
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 Monte Rosa massif, Nordend (left) and the Dufourspitze (right) |
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  Monte Rosa - Dufourspitze
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| Elevation | 4,634 metres (15,203 ft) |
| Location | Valais,  Switzerland |
| Range | Pennine Alps |
| Prominence | 2,165 metres (7,103 ft)ranked 7th in the Alps |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| First ascent | 1855 |
| Easiest route | rock/snow/ice climb |
| Listing | Country high point Canton high point Ultra |
Monte Rosa, also called Dufourspitze (in German, lit. Dufour Peak), is a mountain in the Pennine Alps. With its 4,634 m (15,203 ft) summit, it is the second highest mountain in the Alps and western Europe1 and the highest of Switzerland. Its 2,470 m (8,104 ft) eastern wall is also the tallest in the Alps2 and its western side is covered by the Gorner Glacier, the second largest in the Alps. The peak is located in the canton of Valais in the municipality of Zermatt. It is the summit of the Monte Rosa Massif, a range lying on the border between Italy and Switzerland and composed of several summits over 4500 metres.
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Naming
The mountain was exceptionally renamed Dufourspitze (French: Pointe Dufour, Italian: Punta Dufour, Romansh: Piz da Dufour) by the Swiss Federal Council on January 28, 1863, in honor of Guillaume-Henri Dufour—a Swiss engineer, co-founder of the Red Cross and army officer who led the Sonderbund campaign—following the completion of the Dufour Map, a series of military topographical maps created under the command of Dufour. Before 1863 the summit was simply indicated as Höchste Spitze (in German, lit. Highest Peak) on the Dufour Map. The Italian name Monte Rosa comes from a dialect and means Glacier Mount. It is also used to designate the range.
Altitude
The Swiss national map gives an altitude of 4,633.9 m for the summit (2007).3 A recent work (2000) involving universities and the offices of cartography of Italy and Switzerland was made in order to record a more precise altitude for Monte Rosa. The result was 4,635.25 metres (15,208 ft) from the Italian side and 4,634.97 metres (15,207 ft) from the Swiss side, with a margin of error of 0.1 m.4
Geography
Monte Rosa and its massif
The summit is mainly covered by eternal snows and glaciers, except for its highest point which is a rocky ridge orientated west–east, near to and perpendicular to the main watershed between Switzerland and Italy (Rhône River to the Mediterranean Sea on the north side and Po River to the Adriatic Sea on the south side). The connecting point between them is the Grenzgipfel, the highest summit on the Italian side. Thus the Dufourspitze is the highest mountain whose summit is not on the main watershed.
Monte Rosa has many subpeaks (located on the border) and, unlike Mont Blanc, their altitude (around 4,500 m) is not far lower than the summit itself. The most important (on the UIAA offical list) are:
- Nordend (4,609 m)
- Zumsteinspitze (4,563 m)
- Signalkuppe (4,554 m)
- Parrotspitze (4,432 m)
- Lüdwigshöhe (4,341 m): tripoint between Valais, Aosta Valley and Piedmont
The west and north (Swiss) side greatly differs from the south and east (Italian) side. The former is almost completely covered by large glaciers (mainly the Gorner Glacier) descending progressively with gentle slopes. Thus the valley is uninhabitated and Zermatt, the first settlement, lies 15 km away from the summit. The latter is a 2-km-high wall lying a few kilometers west of Macugnaga.
Monte Rosa is one of the high mountains surrounding the Mattertal valley. On the west are Liskamm, Zwillinge, the Breithorn and the Matterhorn; on the north are the Weisshorn and the Dom.
Because of the low elevation of the mountains to the south, the 2,165 m (7,103 ft) prominence of Monte Rosa is well visible from the plains of Lombardy.
Geology
The entire massif consists mainly of granite and granite gneiss (a metamorphic rock with foliations). The Monte Rosa nappe lies below the Zermatt-Saas zone and is part of the Penninic nappes in the Briançonnais microcontinent zone. The deformation of the Monte Rosa granites indicates a depth of subduction of about 60 km. They were brought to surface by tectonic uplift, which still continues nowadays.
History
- See also: Exploration of the High Alps
At the end of the 15th century Leonardo da Vinci visited the Italian region of Macugnaga and described Monte Rosa (named Monboso by him):
- The base of this mountain gives birth to the 4 rivers which flow in four different directions through the whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer, when the clouds are highest. And this hail lies [unmelted] there, so that if it were not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up there by the layers of hail, and in the middle of July I found it very considerable; and I saw the sky above me quite dark, and the sun as it fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below, because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain and the sun.5
In 1778 a group of seven people from Gressoney reached the 4,178 m (13,707 ft)-high Entdeckungsfels (German: Rock of Discovery) above the Lisjoch; it was the first recorded exploration of the upper Grenz Glacier, located on the west slopes.
In 1789 Horace-Bénédict de Saussure climbed the Pizzo Bianco6, a summit east of Monte Rosa, in order to study its eastern wall and to try to find a way to the top, but without success.
The first ascent was made from Zermatt by John Birbeck, Charles Hudson, Ulrich Lauener, Christopher Smyth, James G. Smyth, Edward Stephenson, Matthäus Zumtaugwald and Johannes Zumtaugwald on August 1, 1855.
Recently, on August 1 (which happens to be the Swiss National Day), 2005, the Swiss Minister of Treasure Joseph Deiss made the ascent of Monte Rosa. The expedition marked the 150th anniversary of the first ascent.
Climbing routes
Normal route
The normal route start from the Monte Rosa Hut (2,795 m) (accessible from Rotenboden on the Gornergrat line). It is mainly a glacier itinerary on the west slopes of Monte Rosa, with the final rocky west ridge to the the summit. Although the itinerary itself is not difficult, it require physical endurance and a good acclimatization.
Marinelli couloir
The route starts from the Marinelli Hut (3,036 m) and follows the steep Marinelli couloir on the east face.
Exploits
- First ascent in 1855 (normal route).
- First ascent on the eastern wall, via the Marinelli Couloir in 1872 (July 22) by Taylor, Pendlebury and Ferdinand Imseng (guide)7
- First winter ascent of the Dufourspitze in 1965 by mountain guides Bettineschi, Iacchini, Pala and Pironi
- In June 1969 the extreme skier Sylvain Saudan descended the entire Marinelli Couloir on the eastern wall8.
- In February 1991, Walter Bernardi alone ascended the Dufourspitze via the Marinelli Couloir9.
Panorama
See also
Notes
- ^ If the Caucasus Mountains are considered to be only in Asia, the Monte Rosa is the second highest mountain of the European continent
- ^ SummitPost.org
- ^ Swissgeo.ch
- ^ La Misura del Monte Rosa (The Measurement of Monte Rosa)
- ^
"The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci" (Note 1060). - ^ Pizzo Bianco, SummitPost.org
- ^ History of alpinism Macugnaga-Monterosa.com
- ^ Saudan Sylvain biography
- ^ Walter Berardi, MonterRosa4000.it
External links
- Dufourspitze on SummitPost.org
- Computer generated summit panoramas North South Index
- Virtual climb of the Dufourspitze with 360 degree panoramas
- Monte Rosa with Dufourspitze
- Peakbagger link
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- This page was last modified on 31 December 2008, at 17:15.
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