Riccardo Cassin

Riccardo Cassin (2 January 19096 August 2009)

In 1940 he married Irma, with whom he had three sons: Valentino, Pierantonio and Guido. In 1934, he made the first ascent of the Piccolissima of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. In 1935, after having repeated Emilio Comici's route on the north-west face of the Civetta, he climbed the south-eastern ridge of the Trieste Tower and, with Vittorio Ratti, established a new route on the north face of Cima Ovest di Lavaredo. In 1937, Cassin made his first climb on the granite of the Western Alps. Over the course of three days, 14–16 July, he made the first ascent of the north-east face of Piz Badile in the Val Bregaglia (Bergell), Switzerland, accompanied by Ratti and Gino Esposito after they teamed up with M. Molteni and G. Valsecchi, the latter two of whom died of exhaustion and exposure on the descent. This route is known today as the Cassin Route or the Via Cassin. He confirmed his extraordinary mountaineering skills 50 years later by climbing this route again at the age of 78. The north face of the Grandes Jorasses. The Walker Spur is the buttress (centre left) leading to the highest summit. Perhaps his most celebrated first ascent was of the Walker Spur on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in the Mont Blanc massif on 4–6 August 1938 with Esposito and Ugo Tizzoni. The alpine historian Helmut Dumler comments that this was "by then universally acknowledged as the finest alpine challenge." According to Claire Engel:

In 1939, together with Tizzoni, Cassin made the first ascent of a steep line on the north face of the Aiguille de Leschaux.

Cassin was one of the leading mountaineers of the inter-war period. In all, Cassin made a total of 2,500 ascents, of which over 100 were first ascents.

World War II During World War II Cassin fought on the side of the partisans against the German occupiers. On 26 April 1945, when he was chief partisan, these going into production two years later. In 1958 he and his son produced their first harness prototype; this went into production two years later, the same year that he introduced titanium crampons.

In 1967 the company became a Limited Company and in the early 1980s it moved from Lecco to Valmadrera. In 1997 the CAMP company bought the Cassin trademark.

Honours Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana (Rome, 9 February 1999) Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana (5 January 1980)