This guidebook shows a selection of typical routes of Apuane Alps mainly opened during the past few years due to the development of techniques, materials and lifestyle in the mountains during winter. It also tries to give a complete overview of the history thanks to direct evidence by the protagonists from all past years who wrote and talked to the authors and told them some of their legendary anecdotes.
But the purpose of this book is also to encourage people to discover the curious “salted ice” dressing Apuane Alps during winter. These mountains can offer any kind of ascents, from classical gullys to technical goulottes, mixed style routes and great northern walls. All those things in a particular mediterranean landscape, where routes seem to born directly from the see.

About the Authors

Giampaolo Betta, born in La Spezia in 1978, he started his mountaineering activity in the Apuan Alps during his teenage years.
After a period of training spent on theAlps, he came back to the Apuan Alps now his favorite adventure terrain, opening new winter routes and making ski descents from the main peaks. He is registered to the National College of Italian Alpine Guides.

Simone Faggi, born in Prato (Tuscany) in 1964, he resides in Florence with his wife and son. He has a degree in physics, he works in the field of environmental pollution from physical agents. He loves hiking in the mountains since he was a little boy, at the age of 30 he attends a course in rock climbing and since then he devoted himself to mountaineering, becoming an instructor of the CAI too. He especially likes winter mountaineering and he found in the Apuan Alps the ideal terrain for his activities, despite having climbed even on Western Alps and Ben Nevis.

Matteo Faganello, professor of Physics at the University of Aix-Marseille, he started his own mountaineering activity in Apuan Alps while studying at the University of Pisa. For years he was one of the promoters of the association ”Equilibrio Precario” in Pisa. Despite his “allergy” to associations and hierarchies he is part since a few years of the Italian Academic Alpine Club and the Groupe d’Haute Montagne, as a recognition of his mountaineering activity in the Alps… and in the Apuan Alps.