Cima Marmotta

Cima Marmotta, known in German as Köllkuppe, is 3,330 metres high according to the Italian measurement and 3,327 according to the Austrian one. It stands on the border between Trentino and Alto Adige, inside the Parco nazionale dello Stelvio, on the ridge that divides the Val Martello from the Val di Peio, and on its summit three ridges meet, partly covered in old snow. It is surrounded by glaciers: the Hohenferner to the north-west, the Vedretta Careser to the south-east.

The first ascent was made on 24 September 1867 by the cartographer and alpine researcher Julius Payer with the guide Johann Pinggera of Solda, who climbed from Peio by way of the Lago Lungo and took almost ten hours. Louis Friedmann's account preserves a detail that says it all: on the Köllkuppe, which Payer did not regard as a separate summit, he did not stop at all, whereas on the neighbouring Cima Venezia he rested for an hour and a half and built a small cairn of stones.

The German name is recent and commemorates the ski mountaineer Lois Köll, who lived between 1886 and 1963. Today the summit is easily reached and in spring it is a popular destination for ski mountaineers: from the rifugio Marteller, at 2,610 metres, it takes two or three hours, in high mountain terrain, with the equipment and experience that the glacier requires. Payer and Pinggera's original route, along the south-west ridge, is rarely followed today.