climbing guidebook Val di Mello

Trad and sport climbing in the cradle of free climbing in Italy.
No other valley in the Alps can match the Val di Mello. Steep walls at the top, a flat valley floor at the bottom, crisscrossed by the turquoise waters of the torrent. And a legendary place in the history of climbing: here, in the 1970s, a group of young people virtually reinvented climbing, creating routes on once impossible walls, amid imposing and powerful nature. This guide is also about that. A book with staying power, in which each route is presented with its character and power, whether pioneer work or still very young. From some of the pioneers we have written testimonies that tell of a time when alpinism and the way of living it were completely revolutionized - the cradle of free climbing in Italy can be found in Val di Mello.
Reading the accounts of Masa, Merizzi, Miotti and Boscacci, one breathes a little of the light yet incisive air of those years. Above all, it takes you back to the point where it all began, where courage and creativity did not strive to be above it all, but were capable of pointing the way for generations to come. Reading here, then, means understanding and rediscovering a world of stone of incomparable quality.
400 pages
Language German
Edition 2023


N. Bartoli
Versante Sud