In the Soldiers' Cave at 3,100 Meters: Melting Ice Reveals Remains of the War...

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Published on Sep 21, 2021

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Kilometers of trenches, ditches and tunnels dating back to the First World War are brought to light on the peaks of the Stelvio. In Bormio, a museum dedicated to high-altitude fighting in the Ortles-Cevedale Alpine complex. Freezing months spent watching over unreachable peaks. And peering at an enemy stationed behind identical rock spurs, on the other side of the valley. Temperatures could plummet to 30 degrees below zero, yet Italian and Austrian soldiers did not abandon their positions even on polar-cold nights, when the ice besieged them, forcing them into shelters dug into the mountain. The Great War was also this, the unequal confrontation between men and the most extreme conditions imposed by nature. Along the Alpine arc, in the operational sectors of the Ortles-Cevedale and Adamello-Presanella groups, it took the name of White War, because it was fought at an average altitude of over 3,000 meters, among snows that were then perennial. The custody of the iceGlobal warming and the progressive melting of the glaciers have freed many of those refuges from the grip of the ice, revealing eagles' nests with their cannons, kilometers of trenches dug into the rock and roads that climb, with observation points found up to the maximum altitude of 3,905 meters above sea level. In the upper Valtellina, on the peaks of the Stelvio National Park, the remains of the high-altitude fighting are today largely visible: «On the top of Scorluzzo for example - explains Stefano Morosini, professor at the University of Bergamo and historical consultant of the Park - we found several caves used as shelters by the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, at over 3,000 meters. From here they could guard the Stelvio Pass, the Venosta Valley, the Vitelli Valley and the Braulio Valley. It was a strategic place, and therefore everything is absolutely entrenched, with numerous tunnels and caves that were lined with wood and used by the soldiers to defend themselves from the cold and from the shots of the Italian artillery». One of these wooden huts was extracted from its shelter in the rock located near the top of Mount Scorluzzo at 3,094 meters, and will soon be rebuilt inside a new museum that will see the light in the coming months, in Bormio. The Lombardy Region, through a program agreement, has allocated 3.2 million euros for the project. The peaksMuch of these remains were unreachable until a few years ago. Encased in ice, they have only recently been brought to light, due to rising temperatures that have led to a significant reduction in the ice areas at high altitudes. "The Forni glacier," explains Guglielmina Diolaiuti, professor of Geology at the University of Milan, "has shortened by over two kilometers, in its place flows a stream that is fed by the... ( Corriere Tv ). Watch the video on Corriere: https://video.corriere.it/cronaca/nel...

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