page_title: Riccardo Cassin
section_title: Expedition leader
hierarchical_section_title: Riccardo Cassin / Expedition leader
caption_attribution_description: West face of Gasherbrum IV in Karakoram mountain range, Pakistan
context_page_description: Riccardo Cassin was an Italian mountaineer, developer of mountaineering equipment and author.
context_section_description: Cassin was supposed to have been on the Italian expedition that made the first ascent of K2 in the Karakoram in 1954, but Ardito Desio, the chief expedition leader for the Italian Alpine Club, preferred not to have Cassin participate. According to Cassin himself:
  In 1952 he [Ardito Desio] did all he could to leave me at home—he felt threatened by my experience, even if in 1952 he took me to the Himalaya to sketch the route, organize the expedition and [figure out] the material to bring. Before we left for Kathmandu, he sent me to do a physical in Rome, where I was told I had some cardiac problems and had to stay home while the expedition members conquered the mountain.
  Following this experience, Cassin concentrated on organizing and leading expeditions himself, including the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in the Karakorum Range by Walter Bonatti and Carlo Mauri on 6 August 1958 and an expedition that climbed Jirishanca in the Andes in 1969.
  In 1961, Cassin was both leader of and a successful ascentionist on the expedition that made the first ascent of the eponymous Cassin Ridge on Mount McKinley in Alaska, at that date the most technical route on the mountain. After this ascent, President Kennedy sent Cassin a telegram of congratulations and, had the Bay of Pigs crisis not intervened, he was scheduled to meet Cassin. In 1975, Cassin led an expedition to the then-unclimbed south face of Lhotse in the Himalaya, but this attempt was unsuccessful as a result of bad weather.
caption: Gasherbrum IV
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