Zufallspitzen

The Zufallspitzen are two twin peaks covered in glaciers in the Ortles Alps, and the pair should be viewed as such. The Hintere Zufallspitze, that is the southern one, is the peak called Cima Cevedale or Cevedale II in Italian and reaches 3757 metres; the Vordere Zufallspitze, the northern one, lies two hundred metres further forward at an altitude of 3700, and is in reality a dome joined to the main body almost without a notch: it gives the impression of an independent peak only if seen when climbing from the Val Martello.

They stand at the meeting point of the Val Martello to the north, the Val di Peio to the south-east and the Val Cedec to the west. The Hintere lies exactly on the border between Alto Adige, Trentino and the Lombard province of Sondrio, that is between the municipalities of Martello, Peio and Valfurva, while the Vordere is already entirely on South Tyrolean soil; the whole area is protected within the Parco nazionale dello Stelvio. Six hundred metres to the south-west, joined by a sharp ridge, rises Monte Cevedale. And it is here that the Zufrittkamm branches off, the ridge whose first peak is Cima Marmotta.

On the origin of the name the explanations do not agree, and the source says so. A popular reading traces the name back to a waterfall of the Plima at the far end of the Val Martello, called zu Fall, which would have given its name first to the land around it and then to the mountain that dominates it; other interpretations start instead from a Romance root. Even the link with the similar-sounding name of the neighbouring Cevedale is unclear.