Does this summer’s heat also make you long for high altitudes? Then, let’s set off for the Valle d’Aosta, where the Matterhorn Alpine Crossing has just been opened. This pioneering project will allow travellers to go from Breuil-Cervinia to Zermatt and back via the highest border pass in the Alps. The new tri-cable installation will be able to move 1,300 people per hour along a 1.6 km route. The service will operate all year round, and covering the entire traverse around the Matterhorn in less than 90 minutes will be possible.
A cross-border collaboration
This project results from a close collaboration between Switzerland, which has invested around 45 million francs, and Italy, with the historic LEITNER company of Sterzing (BZ), a Made in Italy excellence with over 130 years in the ropeway business. The project also involved Technoalpin, the world’s leading manufacturer of snow-making systems, in agreement with the Swiss Foundation for Landscape Conservation.
A forward-looking project
The cableway, a masterpiece of Made in Italy engineering and design, will make it possible to travel from Italy to Switzerland and back every day, even without skiing, thanks to 10 state-of-the-art cabins. The cabins, designed and engineered by the renowned Pininfarina studio, were conceived to easily accommodate even wheelchair users.
An 80-year-long dream – in fact, the idea of a direct connection between Zermatt and Cervinia began to take shape as early as when the two ski resorts first joined forces – has finally become true thanks to Leitner, the South Tyrolean group and world leader in the construction of cableways, founded in 1888 by Gabriel Leitner. 145 engineers and technicians worked for more than a year to buildthe Alpine Crossing (a continuation of the Matterhorn Glacier Ride built in 2021) at an altitude of around 4,000 metres, with extreme logistical effort, with winter temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees and winds reaching 240 km/h.
Technology and sustainability
The system is driven by the environmentally friendly and efficient Leitner DirectDrive system, which operates with few components, at low speed and without gears requiring oil.
Thanks to a new, powerful photovoltaic system with a surface area of no less than 74 m2 located on the facade of the Matterhorn Paradise Glacier mountain station and capable of producing 16,875 kWh per year, the cableway can save 8900 kg of CO2 per year.
Towards new heights
LEITNER S.p.a has built hundreds of installations worldwide (including the ‘Cablebús 2’ in Mexico City, the longest cableway in Latin America) and is an international leader with Anton Seeber as president, almost 4,000 employees and collaborators, more than 800 million euros in turnover and 20 branches worldwide!
Congratulations to those who bring Made in Italy talent and technology to high altitudes and the world!
Read about other outstanding companies from Trentino-Alto Adige.