Mountaineering in Monte Rosa

Monte Rosa is the great glaciated massif on the Italian–Swiss border, and the Spaghetti Tour is the most generous way to collect its summits.

Over five days, hut to hut, you string together six or more 4,000-metre peaks — Breithorn, Castor, the Lyskamm skyline, Parrotspitze, and the Signalkuppe, where the Margherita Hut sits at 4,554 metres, the highest building in Europe.

It is genuine glacier mountaineering — roped travel, crampons and axe — but the peaks are mostly moderate, so it delivers an extraordinary tally of altitude for climbers with the right skills rather than the boldest.

The huts, several on the Italian side, gave the tour its nickname for the pasta they serve at altitude.

Nights spent above 3,600 metres, dawn starts on firm snow, and a horizon of 4,000-metre summits in every direction make it one of the Alps' great weeks.

Five days moving roped across glaciers between mountain huts, gaining and losing altitude to tick summit after summit.

The climbing is mostly moderate snow and easy mixed ground — no hard technical pitches — but the setting is serious high altitude, with crevasses, cold pre-dawn starts and thin air above 4,000 metres.

You'll sleep in huts perched on rock islands amid the ice, including a night at the Margherita Hut at 4,554 metres, where sleep is hard and appetite fades. Weather can shut the whole thing down for days.

Fitness, acclimatisation and comfort on a rope and crampons are assumed; the reward is six summits in a week.

Go in the summer season, roughly late June to September, once the glaciers are in condition, and build in acclimatisation days before you start — the tour lives above 3,600 metres, and altitude, not fitness, is what stops people.

Most climbers hire an IFMGA mountain guide, strongly recommended here for crevasse rescue and route-finding on live glaciers. Base in Zermatt or the Italian Gressoney and Alagna valleys and take the lifts high to begin. Book the huts, especially the Margherita, well ahead.

Come with crampon and rope competence, a full glacier kit, and a flexible schedule to wait out weather windows.