Historical Introduction
The mountains are mute masters and make silent disciples. (Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe) What better sentence to convey the atmosphere one breathes along the confined slopes we so much love? The mountains, our mysterious masters. Either arduous or with a gradual gradient, covered by thick woods or by barren bushes, they will never stop teaching us something, even after thousands of ascents, even when we believe we can conquer them. And the Apuan Alps fit right into this description, their indisputable uniqueness confers them with a deep romanticism. Their profile, unusual for a typical Apennine ridge, looks like the jump on the ECG (electrocardiogram) chart which has been regular for a long time. The rebellion of nature, which tired of drawing gradual lines, has woken up for an instant giving us harsh peaks with fascinating shapes. Just like the humps of the Gobbe del Cavallo, the imposing towers of Corchia and the window of Forato. Or like Procinto, the “panettone” where nature’s inspiration seems to have found fertile land creating a rocky spur shaped like a quartz wedged in the woods. All under the protection of the King (Pisanino) and the Queen (Pania) majestic pyramids with features which are on a par with the more popular alpine high lands. And it is right on these peaks, among us their silent disciples, there is someone who has dared leave a mark in our memory by opening routes which even now still brighten our days. These are the stories of the great alpinists who succeeded one another on these mountains which due to their peculiar morphology and specific geology of “slippery limestone rock subject to karst erosion” have always represented some fascinating challenges for each one of them.
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Initially object of exploration on the part of the brave cartographers or daring woodsmen, the Apuan ridges became terrain for the first climbing attempts only towards the second half of the XIX century immediately attracting the attention of the major Italian and foreign alpinists (if you think of the great Douglas W.Freshfield, English alpinist and his fellow countryman, Richard Henry Budden, known in the environment as the apostle of alpinism, so in love with the Apuan mountains that he contributed decisively in promoting their tourism and mountaineering as president of the Florentine section of C.A.I.) End of the 40’s ↓
