Monterosa Est Himalayan Trail

5:00 AM. Headlamp on 🔦. The Anzasca Valley is still sleeping 😴, and you’re already there, scanning the dark wall of ice and rock as it tests the clouds ⛅️. Welcome to the Monterosa East Himalayan Trail 🏔️.

The name sounds grand? It is. The eastern face of the Monte Rosa, 4 634 m, the first summit of Switzerland 🇨🇭 and the only wall in the entire Alpine arc that climbers, without exaggeration, compare to the great Himalayan faces. Generations of climbers 🧗 from around the world have left their marks there. And in August, it’s you who will race at its base for the trail of a lifetime. The MEHT starts from Macugnaga, a Walser village perched at 1 327 m above sea level in the north of Piedmont in Italy 🇮🇹. Four distances are offered—the "EPIC 58K", the "SKY 39K", the "SCENIC 21K", and the "ZMAKANA' 13K"—with an added Mini Trail of 2 km for kids on Sunday morning 🎉. A perfect way to get the whole family into the adventure 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒. One number to set the scene: the summit of the "EPIC 58K", the Passo Mondelli, rises to 2 886 m.

Cut the wide, tarmacked avenues of urban marathons ❌. Here, the terrain is real mountain terrain ✅. Trails, alpine meadows, rocky passages, moraines, and this Alpine sky that can shift from cobalt blue to black clouds in twenty minutes ⏱️. The organizers state in black and white: every participant must be self-sufficient in extreme conditions: cold 🥶, heat 🥵, rain 🌧️, wind 💨, snow ❄️. In August at high altitude, we’ve seen it all: the mountain gives no concessions 😬. All races start and finish at Macugnagawhere the MEHT Village 🏘️. The courses dive into the valley’s heart, passing hamlets with intact charm, Pestarena, Isella, Fornarelli, before climbing and, for the two longest distances, reaching the Passo Mondelli at 2 886 m. This pass marks the Italian-Swiss border with the Valais canton 🇨🇭. In other words, on the "EPIC" and the "SKY", you cross from one country to another while running 🏃. Not many trails can boast that 🤔. And then there’s the Mont Rose itself 🏔️. Running in sight of the highest face of the Alps, this Italian expression says "in the presence of", almost "under supervision of", it resets the counters. Runners say the sunrise on the eastern face 🌄 after the first dark hours is one of the most memorable moments of their athletic life. No marketing hype behind it. Just rock 🪨, ice 🧊, lakes, and you 🫵.

Macugnaga isn’t just a backdrop for a trail in nature. It’s a lively village with 800 years of history behind it 🏡, founded in the 13th century by the Walser, a Germanic people who moved from the Monte Moro Pass in the Swiss Valais to settle in this remote valley. Their language, Titsch, a Germanic dialect still spoken by a few elders, their cedarwood architecture, their agricultural traditions: all this did not vanish with mass tourism. The Dorf, the village’s historic core, will charm you with its typical houses. As much as the Chiesa Vecchia of the 14th century ⛪️, with its old lime tree, has a solemn air 🌳 and we genuinely recommend you go take a look 👀.

After the physical effort 😮‍💨, the Lago delle Fate (Fairy Lake) in the Quarazza valley will reward you with a visual feast worthy of its name 🧚. And if you want to go even higher without effort, the Macugnaga cable car will take you up to 3 000 m at the Passo del Monte Moro, exactly where EPIC runners sweat it out. A guaranteed view of Monte Rosa on the Swiss side, with the Matterhorn visible on a clear day. On the plate, the region offers some of its best culinary highlights 🍽️. The alpine cheeses aged at altitude are the valley’s pride, with a distinctive character that flat-country cheeses can’t imitate 🧀. The rye bread of the Walser, dense and fragrant, has been part of local culinary heritage for centuries 🍞. The region’s grail is the Bettelmatt 😍 : a rare alpine cheese, produced only on a few pastures above 2 000 m in the neighboring valleys of Formazza and Antigorio, mentioned in medieval documents from the 15th century for its exceptional quality 👌. If you come across one, don’t let it slip by! 😉

Maybe you’ll see life in rose after completing this trail 🎀.