Eugenio Benecchi (1907-1993), the trusted dentist of generations of fellow citizens of Casalmaggiore (CR), where he also founded the local subdivision of the CAI, was an old-school mountaineer.
A lover of the meditative solitude of the mountains and scornful of exertion, he – a man of the flat country – believed that the pathway taken to reach the summits was actually more important than conquering them.
In his eyes, the mountains, and the Dolomites in particular, represented a continuous discovery, both in winter and summer. They represented the pleasure of adventure and research, the search not only for nature, but also for himself, because amidst the rocks he felt a sense of frailness of the world, where values and ideas were becoming more and more precarious and transitory, devoured by the suddenness of change.
Benecchi dedicated splendid poems to these and other feelings that he was inspired by during his Dolomite climbs. We would like to propose a few of his verses at the end of this article. In 1999, the famous free-climber Manolo (known by the name Maurizio Zanolla at the time) and Benecchi’s young nephew, Marco Vallari, brought one of his lyric poems (“Dopo la scalata” [After the climb]), a handwritten story and a prayer dedicated to climbers, up to the majestic Cimon della Pala (3186 metres), they enclosed it in a steel box and fixed it to the rocky wall as a commemorative plaque in memory of an attempted but unsuccessful climb that the dentist-climber had embarked on in 1933.
Passionate about the mountains from the time of his youth, doctor Eugenio had climbed numerous summits – with simple equipment, but brimming with energy and determination – mostly accompanied by the famous Zagonel brothers from S. Martino di Castrozza, the guides who went on to become legends of alpine pioneering.
A little sporty, somewhat the explorer, and somewhat like a soldier: in the end, Benecchi the climber incarnated all three of these roles, aware that in order to climb, lightness and balance were more necessary than mere strength and the sense of drama that was often associated with the myth of the mountains always had to be balanced out with the power of the imagination in action and contemplation.
After all, he believed militant mountaineering to be a vital projection of his modest spirit, without illusions and without heroic aspirations, ignoring the academies and any competitive spirit. The greatness of this man of the Alps was also in his humility, in his fatigue and in his melancholy yet vital awareness of the outside world, that derived for him from the perception of the “challenge”, that is, his human limitations when faced with the Universe and its divine beauty.
If some of the readers judge his writings dedicated to the enchanting summits to be a little emphatic, they should reflect on the fact that this style actually sounded spontaneous and adequate to the sensitive nature and soul of a wise enthusiast of an active, refined and discreet life.

After the climb I’ve reached the summit! For hours I’ve struggled with the ice of the granite, with the obsession of the emptiness, with fear. I’ve reached the summit! And my gaze sweeps over one thousand pinnacles and spires as far as they eye can see, they spring up, out of the slender veils of the clouds, as though they were launched towards the heavens. I’ve reached the summit! and finally, in the cold silence of the morning, under the immaculate blue expanse that stands above me, kneeling on the naked stone I hold out my arms still trembling with tiredness and I speak to God alone!
	La vetta Valeria Pontoglio
	Old Edelweiss Sweet flower of the Alps, alpine star that I see amidst the pages of a notebook your little head is crushed on the stem, as though you were already dozing off in eternal sleep Your corolla is a white halo of woolly and abandoned petals, it seems as though you are lingering, paining and tired, among those yellowed unfolded pages. I look at you and I think of the mountains, of the wind in the snowy summits of the glaciers I think of the clear sky of a great valley: and a bitter thought enters my heart as icy as the ice of the snowfields, my youth is now a thing of the past…