Idea Montagna Rosso Serpentino climbing guide

Idea Montagna – Rosso Serpentino is a guide dedicated to Val d’Ala, the most famous of the three Valli di Lanzo, known since the dawn of subalpine mountain tourism and closely linked to the birth of mountaineering and the Club Alpino Italiano in 1863, under the Mole Antonelliana. The predominant rocks of the valley, the iron-rich serpentinites due to oxidation, have represented a severe and formative training ground for generations of climbers, giving rise to names of great importance in the history of mountaineering in northwestern Italy.

The volume collects the descriptions of 50 multipitch routes and 126 single pitches, distributed across 31 sectors, offering a complete and in-depth overview of climbing on these historic walls.

The authors are three prominent figures in Piedmontese mountaineering: Marco Blatto, residing in Cantoira in Val Grande di Lanzo, climber and CAI instructor, technician of the Alpine Rescue, and consultant for brands in the sector, with hundreds of new routes on rock and ice, often solo; Renato Giustetto, from Turin, with over fifty years of experience on rock and ice in Italy and abroad, author of about forty multipitch routes and promoter of the "Sentieri Resistenti" project, a fourteen-stage trek through the Valli di Lanzo to Val Pellice; and Gian Maria Grassi, from Turin, National Ski Mountaineering Instructor of CAI since 1999 and director of the Central Ski Mountaineering School from 2019 to 2025, an avid visitor of the Valli di Lanzo and tireless traveler, with ski mountaineering experiences throughout Europe and beyond, from Nepal to Patagonia.