The Gran Paradiso in the only 4000m summit entirely within Italy and gives it’s name to the beautiful national park that surrounds the peak.

A scenic 2-3 hour hut approach from the road head, leads to the friendly Vittorio Emanuele hut. This is where we spend the night, before a pre dawn start the following morning. The climb is a steady ascent, mostly on snow, with a few steeper sections as the glacier gains height. Eventually the route leads out onto a wide glacial bowl, which is skirted in an anticlockwise direction up to the final summit rocks. The last 100m of scrambling to the summit is often busy, as teams pass back and forth along the same route, but the view is well worth it. On the way down, height can be lost quickly in good snow conditions, but the descent from the hut back down to the valley is always a tiring one!