page_title: Monte Rosa
section_title: Geographic setting and description
hierarchical_section_title: Monte Rosa / Geography and climate / Geographic setting and description
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of the part of the Pennine Alps containing the Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn. The plane itself is located roughly above the Mont Blanc. Time on the camera was set to Bangkok time: local time of image was 12:12:50.
context_page_description: Monte Rosa is a mountain massif located in the eastern part of the Pennine Alps. It is located between Italy and Switzerland. Monte Rosa is the second highest mountain in the Alps and western Europe, after Mont Blanc.
  The group is located on the watershed between central and southern Europe.
  The Monte Rosa massif has four faces. Three in Italy: the Liskamm heading above the Val de Gressoney, the Valsesian face above Alagna Valsesia at the upper part of the Valle della Sesia, and the steep, big east wall above Macugnaga in the Valle Anzasca. And the Swiss north-western face with several glaciers flowing towards the Mattertal with Zermatt.
  Its main summit, named Dufourspitze in honor of the surveyor Guillaume-Henri Dufour and wholly located in Switzerland, culminates at 4,634 m above sea level and is followed by the five nearly equally high subsidiary summits of Dunantspitze, Grenzgipfel, Nordend, Zumsteinspitze and Signalkuppe. Some other over 4000 m peaks such as Piramide Vincent, Punta Giordani, and Corno Nero are wholly in Italy.
context_section_description: Monte Rosa cover areas on both sides of the border between the Swiss canton of Valais and the Italian regions of Piedmont and Aosta Valley. The main summit of Monte Rosa is the Dufourspitze. On the Swiss side the town centre of Zermatt is about 13 km (8.1 mi) south-east and 3,000 m (9,800 ft) above it. On the Italian side of the massif are located 9 km (5.6 mi) north-east Macugnaga in the Valle Anzasca,11 km (6.8 mi)south-east-south Alagna Valsesia in the Valsesia and 13 km (8.1 mi) Gressoney-La-Trinité in the Val de Gressoney, respectively, away from the summit. The different sides of the mountain greatly differ from each other. The Swiss west side is almost completely covered by large glaciers, tributaries of the 57 km² (22 sq mi) large Gorner Glacier, descending progressively with gentle slopes and forming a large uninhabited glacial valley. The Italian east side consists of a 2,400-metre-high (7,900 ft) wall overlooking Macugnaga, whose snows feed the Belvedere Glacier at its base. The southeast face, culminating at the Signalkuppe, overlooks the piedmontese Valsesia (Italian: Valle della Sesia) and the Val de Gressoney in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley.
  The mountain is mainly covered by eternal snows and glaciers, except for its summit which is a rocky ridge orientated west–east, near to and perpendicular to the main watershed between Switzerland and Italy (the river basins of the Rhône and the Po on the Swiss and Italian side, respectively). The connecting point between them is the Grenzgipfel (English: Border Summit) right on the border, and therefore also the highest peak on the Italian side. Thus Monte Rosa is the highest mountain in the Alps whose summit is not on the main alpine watershed, although it is off by only 150 metres. The Silbersattel (English: Silver Saddle) and Grenzsattel (English: Border Saddle) are the passes located north and south to the summit. The three main secondary summits of Monte Rosa are (from north to south): the Nordend (4,609 m; north of the Dufourspitze), the Zumsteinspitze (4,563 m; south of the Dufourspitze) and the Signalkuppe (4,554 m, Italian: Punta Gnifetti), all of them being positioned right on the Swiss-Italian border. Other secondary summits are the Parrotspitze (4,432 m), the Ludwigshöhe (4,341 m) and the Vincentpiramid (4,215 m). All of them originally have German names, since even the Italian valleys used to be by German-based Walsers inhabited valleys.
  Several perpendicular secondary ridges are connected to the central massif dividing the glaciers that descend towards the Matter Valley. The ridge called Weissgrat connecting the Nordend with the Schwarzberghorn (Italian: Corno Nero) presents a wall of formidable precipices towards the east, but falls away in a gentle slope to the west. For a breadth of a few kilometres the upper snow-fields of the Weissgrat lie almost unbroken upon this slope, but as they begin to descend towards the Matter Valley they are divided into two icestreams (the upper Gorner Glacier and the Findel Glacier) by a ridge which gradually emerges from the névé, and finally presents a rather bold front to the glaciers on either side. The highest points of this ridge, appearing insignificant by contrast with the grand objects around, is the Stockhorn (3,532 m)) and the lower Gornergrat at 3,090 m. On their south sides is the lower Gorner Glacier, formed by the confluence of all the major (Gornergletscher and Grenzgletscher) and minor tributaries descending from the north, west and south sides of the central Monte Rosa massif, while on the north side the Findel Glacier descends near to the hamlet of Findeln.
  Monte Rosa is one of the high mountains surrounding the 40-kilometre-long (25 mi) Matter Valley south of Stalden. On the southwest to west are Liskamm, Zwillinge with Castor and Pollux, the Breithorn and the Matterhorn; on the north are the Weisshorn and the Dom. The Gornergrat summit, lying 8 km (5.0 mi) on the north-west at 3,100 metres (10,200 ft), is a popular view point of the massif, since it is accessible by train from Zermatt, using
caption: The Monte Rosa with Po Valley behind it, under a layer of clouds
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