Info > Honorary members > BRUNO DETASSIS

Born in Trento in June 1910 in a working-class family (his father Antonio was a carpenter and important member of the Trentino trade unions of the time). 

He is the progenitor of a great mountaineering school influenced for half a century by his extraordinary personality. He opened up over 200 routes in the Dolomites, including the north face of Upper Brenta in the Brenta Dolomites in August 1934 with the mountain guides Enrico Giordani and Ulisse Battistata.

In 1935, with Enrico Giordani, he opened up the famous Via delle Guide on Crozzon di Brenta and in 1937 a new route on the west pillar of Cima Tosa, with Giorgio Graffer. A prolific climbing period in the Trentino Dolomites (from Brenta to the Pale di San Martino) in the thirties sprang from the meeting with Ettore Castiglioni, who was working on the first mountaineering guide of the “I Monti d’Italia” series. 

Detassis was also one of the first Trentino ski instructors: he trained in the early thirties at the school of Hans Noebl in Sestriere (where he met his wife Nella Christian, also a ski instructor). In 1939 he moved from Piedmont to run the ski school in Madonna di Campiglio (where he still lives). 

Since 1949 he has managed the Brentei refuge in the heart of the Brenta Dolomites. He is also known for many rescue operations. In December 1957 he led the first Trentino expedition in Patagonia.