Mountain Museum

The Mountain and Smuggling Museum is housed in a typical Walser architecture building located in Prati in the hamlet of Staffa. Outside a bust of the artist G. Radice in memory of the great Anzaschino painter Carlo Bossone. The exhibition is divided into three themes united by the guiding thread of the mountain. On the ground floor there is a valuable cycle of panels by the Milanese caricaturist and publicist Aldo Mazza (1880-1964), which ironically describe mountaineering on Monte Rosa. On the mezzanine floor an important collection of finds illustrates the mountaineering history of Macugnaga, many of these, which belonged to climbers who perished on the “Rosa” wall, were returned from the glacier. In the corridor there are materials and equipment with which the famous Macugnaga Guide Group conquered the east face of Monte Rosa: skis, ropes, backpacks, crampons and perfectly preserved original clothing. The mountaineering section is completed by a series of documents on the great Macugnaga mountain guide Mattia Zurbriggen (first climber of Aconcagua). The section dedicated to smuggling, through a very rich documentation, bears witness to a recent past of the mountain populations. Photographs, journalistic articles, direct testimonies allow the deepening of an illegality that often resulted in the only form of sustenance for entire families.