Top of the World
The museum was desired and started by Luigi Amedeo di Savoia and was inaugurated in 1929. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Courmayeur Mountain Guide Society, the oldest in Italy, founded in 1850, and of the conservative restoration of the historical Guide's house, the Duca degli Abruzzi Alpine Museum has been completely renovated to host a new evocative exhibition, able to retrace the history of the profession of guides since the beginning. The ground floor is dedicated to the pioneers, the "guides à mulets" who with the help of mules accompanied travellers, even illustrious ones, such as some members of the Royal Family, to discover high altitude territories still unexplored. Testimonies, photographs and objects narrate the evolution of mountaineering and the activity of the mountain guides: -pictures of last century's expeditions to Alaska, India, Africa, K2 and the North Pole 86th latitude, with Amedeo Luigi di Savoia Duca degli Abruzzi and the Courmayeur Mountain Guides; -material used in the mission in which the highest latitude ever reached at the North Pole was reached (the sledge, the padded shoes specially made by hand, the instruments of the ship Stella Polaris, various items of clothing and the jacket worn by the Duke of the Abruzzi); -objects in memory of Africa belonging to the local populations; -the history of the bivouacs and their use, with the exhibition of the Freboudze bivouac, installed in 1925; -the collection of the booklets of the Courmayeur Mountain Guides with the testimonies of clients and summit books; -testimonies of the birth of the discipline of ski mountaineering and exhibition of material by Toni Gobbi, who was its initiator; -the harness invented by the guide Arturo Ottoz; -the Alpine Rescue corner with equipment from its origins to the present day; -the wall with ice axes, boots and crampons with their historical route.
