The Trofeo Mezzalama is an international ski-touring race with classic equipment. Athletes must start in a line-up and a maximum of one hundred teams may participate made up of three athletes on the rope.The race is held under the aegis of the FISI (Italian Winter Sports Federation) on a high mountain trail, frequently above 4000 metres and featuring mountaineering-level challenges

The antecedent fact that began this “white marathon” history on the glaciers of the Monte Rosa was Ottorino Mezzalama who died under an avalanche in the Alpi Breonie close to Vipiten (Bolzano). He was the pioneer of ski-touring.The first edition was held on May 28, 1931 when the members of the Club Alpino Accademico Italiano, of the Cai Torino and of the Ski Club Torino, with the help of the newspaper La Stampa, organized a “sixth-level” ski-touring extreme race on the Monte Rosa, considered back then to be the limit of ski-touring difficulty levels

The Trofeo Mezzalama has remained faithful to the tradition of patrol races, just like in 1933 for the military, with three components for each team who have to carry out the race together on a rope along the whole 45 kilometres of the trail.

The Trofeo Mezzalama is not your classic ski-touring “race“, it is a challenge, first against yourself and then against the others.