The Trentino Alpine Rescue: The Human Side of the Mountains

1952. Brenta Dolomites. On a day brimming with eternal beauty, the Dolomites lured a group of young hikers who set out from the valley floor to explore. That day, the four climbers were swallowed up and held hostage in the belly of the Dolomites. Like Pinocchio in the whale. Days passed, and only one climber, the sole survivor, emerged from that crevasse. All of Italy was shaken.

2024. During a concert of “I Suoni delle Dolomiti” with Bach’s music playing beneath the Brenta Dolomites, bathed in the midday sun, that tragic incident seems improbable, something that could never have happened there. Yet, it is the sight of the Trentino Alpine Rescue, at the meadow’s end, that brings us peace.

The Trentino Alpine and Speleological Rescue was born out of necessity, precisely after the accident in the Brenta Dolomites that day in 1952. Scipio Stenico, a doctor and mountaineer, initiated this project made up of people full of courage and passion, with a strong spirit of solidarity, motivating them to rescue the lives of others, without asking for payment, the how, or the why of the request.

In Trentino, there are 800 rescuers. They are operational at all hours, every day of the year, called to intervene up to 1,400 times a year, especially between July and October. Volunteers, with a very high level of training, in continuous education, aided by technologically advanced tools. Like the helicopter, which has revolutionized mountain rescue, allowing them to reach previously inaccessible places in just a few minutes.

At the concert at dawn last September, I searched for them with my eyes. When I saw them, they were together, as a team. Red jackets, headlamps on, and a smile for everyone. As the sun was still rising, Elena, I think I heard her name, was bringing a blanket to a young girl who was shivering in the audience. As she walked away silently, amidst the notes, on my mountains, I said to her, “THANK YOU”.

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