Riccardo Cassin

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Riccardo Cassin

Riccardo Cassin (2 January 1909 – 6 August 2009)[1] was an Italian mountaineer, developer of mountaineering equipment and author, and an important figure in the history of rock climbing, alpine climbing and big wall climbing.

Life

Born into a peasant family at

Austro-Hungarian Empire, Cassin had humble origins. When he was three his father, Valentino, emigrated to Canada where he died in a mining accident in 1913 when aged 29. Cassin left school at the age of 12 to work for a blacksmith. In 1926, when 17, he moved to Lecco where he found employment at a steel plant. His first love was boxing, but he soon became fascinated by the mountains that tower over Lake Como and Lake Garda.[1]

In 1940 he married Irma, with whom he had three sons – Valentino, Pierantonio and Guido.[2]

Alpinism

The north-east face of Piz Badile. The Cassin Route ascends the right-hand side of the face.

Cassin started mountaineering in around 1930 together with a group known as the Ragni di Lecco (spiders of Lecco).[3] In 1934, he made the first ascent of the Piccolissima of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. In 1935, after having repeated Emilio Comici's route on the north-west face of the Civetta, he climbed the south-eastern ridge of the Trieste Tower and, with Vittorio Ratti, established a new route on the north face of Cima Ovest di Lavaredo.[4] In 1937, Cassin made his first climb on the granite of the Western Alps. Over the course of three days, 14–16 July, he made the first ascent of the north-east face of Piz Badile in the Val Bregaglia (Bergell), Switzerland, accompanied by Ratti and Gino Esposito after they teamed up with M. Molteni and G. Valsecchi, the latter two of whom died of exhaustion and exposure on the descent.[5] This route is known today as the Cassin Route or the Via Cassin. He confirmed his extraordinary mountaineering skills 50 years later by climbing this route again at the age of 78.

The north face of the Grandes Jorasses. The Walker Spur is the buttress (centre left) leading to the highest summit.

Perhaps his most celebrated first ascent was of the Walker Spur on the north face of the

Mont Blanc massif on 4–6 August 1938 with Esposito and Ugo Tizzoni. The alpine historian Helmut Dumler comments that this was "by then universally acknowledged as the finest alpine challenge."[6]
According to Claire Engel:

They knew nothing of the Chamonix district, had never been there before, and in a vague fashion asked the hut keeper where the Grandes Jorasses were. Even more vaguely, the man made a sweeping gesture and said: "somewhere there". He had not recognised the Italians and he thought their question was a joke. He was greatly surprised when, the next evening, he saw a bivouac light fairly high up the Walker spur; by the next night the light has crept up the face. On August 6th the party reached the summit ridge, where it was caught by a violent storm which compelled the men to bivouac on the way down.

— Claire Engel (1971) Mountaineering in the Alps, London: George Allen and Unwin, p. 231

In 1939, together with Tizzoni, Cassin made the first ascent of a steep line on the north face of the Aiguille de Leschaux.

Cassin was one of the leading mountaineers of the inter-war period. In all, Cassin made a total of 2,500 ascents, of which over 100 were first ascents.[2]

World War II

During

St Moritz, and Ratti was shot dead. Cassin was decorated for his actions in the partisan campaign during the years 1943–45.[2]

Expedition leader

Gasherbrum IV

Cassin was supposed to have been on the

Italian Alpine Club
, preferred not to have Cassin participate. According to Cassin himself:

In 1952 he [Ardito Desio] did all he could to leave me at home—he felt threatened by my experience, even if in 1952 he took me to the Himalaya to sketch the route, organize the expedition and [figure out] the material to bring. Before we left for Kathmandu, he sent me to do a physical in Rome, where I was told I had some cardiac problems and had to stay home while the expedition members conquered the mountain.[3]

Following this experience, Cassin concentrated on organizing and leading expeditions himself, including the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in the Karakorum Range by Walter Bonatti and Carlo Mauri on 6 August 1958 and an expedition that climbed Jirishanca in the Andes in 1969.

In 1961, Cassin was both leader of and a successful ascensionist on the expedition that made the first ascent of the eponymous Cassin Ridge on

Himalaya
, but this attempt was unsuccessful as a result of bad weather.

Mountaineering equipment

50-cm Cassin ice hammer

Cassin began designing and producing mountaineering equipment in

ice axes appeared in 1949; and 1950 saw the introduction of his carabiners. That same year he produced the "first eiderdown duvet jackets for non-European mountaineering expeditions",[7] these going into production two years later. In 1958 he and his son produced their first harness prototype; this went into production two years later, the same year that he introduced titanium crampons
.

In 1967 the company became a Limited Company and in the early 1980s it moved from Lecco to Valmadrera. In 1997 the CAMP company bought the Cassin trademark.[7]

100th birthday celebrations

Cassin's 100th birthday fell on 2 January 2009. A retrospective book, entitled Riccardo Cassin: Cento volti di un grande alpinista ("Riccardo Cassin: One Hundred Faces of a Great Alpinist"), was produced to mark the occasion, containing one hundred testimonials from people associated with Cassin, including Edouard Frendo, Georges Livanos, John F. Kennedy, Reinhold Messner, Carlo Mauri, Walter Bonatti, Gianni Brera and Candido Cannavò.[2]

Cassin died in Piano dei Resinelli, Lecco, on 6 August 2009, aged 100.[8]

Honours

Sources

References

  1. ^ a b c Riccardo Cassin . The Telegraph. 10 August 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d Cassin 100th birthday celebrations. Notizie.alice.it. Retrieved on 20 July 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d Cassin interview Archived 26 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Climbing.com. Retrieved on 20 July 2015.
  4. ^ Claire Engel (1971) Mountaineering in the Alps, London: George Allen and Unwin, p. 247
  5. ^ Robin G. Collomb, Bregaglia West, Goring: West Col Productions, 1984, p. 98. In 1987 the 78-year-old Cassin celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first ascent by again ascending the north-east face.
  6. ISBN 0898863783
  7. ^ a b The story of the Cassin company. cassin.it
  8. ^ Death of Riccardo Cassin kairn.com, accessed 9 August 2009
  9. ^ Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana award to Cassin by the President of the Republic
  10. ^ Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana award to Cassin on the initiative of the President of the Council

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Riccardo Cassin.
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