Between lakes and mountains – Osservatorio Alpinistico Lecchese

From left: Riccardo Cassin and Carlo Mauri, two of the most famous representatives of Lecco mountaineering tradition (Photo archive Cassin Foundation)

«I was born and raised going uphill [...] I stepped out onto the terraced hillside where at one point crops and vines were cultivated: a south facing slope, (meaning that both the plants and the people mature well), a slope which goes from the lake up to the rocks”.

This is how Carlo Mauri, one of the most famous Lecco mountaineers, described in so few words the soul of Lecco and its people in the opening words of his autobiography “Quando il rischio è vita” (“When the risk is your life.”).

In this region, towns and villages have grown up in the narrow valleys between lake and mountain. Sometimes they grew onto improbably steep slopes, where every road is steep and it is difficult even to find a little bit of flat land where the kids can play ball. 
 
Lecco people have grown up like this: they all have one foot in the lake and one on the mountain. Children of the ironwork factories which had been the base of the economy of the area for tens of years. Yet they are never too far away from the land and work in the fields and orchards.  
 
The great tradition of Lecco mountaineering could only have been born here, where so many young people who had developed their physique in the workshops and factories could find the perfect outdoor gym right on their doorstep. The natural gym of hundreds of limestone mountain faces is a place for them to feel the sense of adventure, to chase their dreams and go beyond the limits of their social and economic status, in the most beautiful and difficult mountains in the world, through the strength of friendship, their group and the extraordinary determination of the individual.

In this region, towns and villages have grown up in the narrow valleys between lake and mountain. Sometimes they grew onto improbably steep slopes, where every road is steep and it is difficult even to find a little bit of flat land where the kids can play ball.

Lecco people have grown up like this: they all have one foot in the lake and one on the mountain. Children of the ironwork factories which had been the base of the economy of the area for tens of years. Yet they are never too far away from the land and work in the fields and orchards.

The great tradition of Lecco mountaineering could only have been born here, where so many young people who had developed their physique in the workshops and factories could find the perfect outdoor gym right on their doorstep. The natural gym of hundreds of limestone mountain faces is a place for them to feel the sense of adventure, to chase their dreams and go beyond the limits of their social and economic status, in the most beautiful and difficult mountains in the world, through the strength of friendship, their group and the extraordinary determination of the individual.

One of the historical iron working industries of Lecco, the rolling mill of Arlenico, marine chains manufacturing department (Photo taken from S. A. Steelworks and Ironworks of Caleotto, Lecco 1936)

Laorca, one of the districts above Lecco, where the rocks are rising above the houses rooftops (Photo Tiziana Rota)

Cerro Torre, Patagonia, one of the greatest achievements of Lecco Mountaineering (Photo Ragni della Grignetta archive - Ragnilecco.com)