Lofty Memorials

Of the many memorials to Pope Pius XI, dead last week, least famed but most lofty perhaps is the Ratti Route, an Alpine trail on the way from Chamonix to the top of Mont Blanc (15,781 ft.), so named to commemorate the feat of Achille Ratti and a fellow priest, Monsignor Luigi Grasselli, two of the most adventurous mountain climbers in Italian history, who first blazed the trail in 1890. Another monument to the Pope's Alpine enthusiasm: a stone tablet in a little church at Macugnaga, at the foot of Monte Rosa, celebrating the first conquest of its highest peak (15,217 ft.) from the Italian side--most daring of the 200 Alpine ascents made during his lifetime.

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