Balmenhorn

A subsidiary rock shoulder on the Monte Rosa summit plateau between the Ludwigshöhe and the Vincent Pyramid. The summit carries the 'Cristo delle Vette', a four-metre bronze statue of Christ erected in 1955 by an Italian alpinist consortium led by the Padre Antonio Andreoletti, and a small bivouac shelter (the Bivacco Felice Giordano) opened in 1942 and still standing. The peak is so close to the much higher Ludwigshöhe that it has rarely been treated as a serious objective; the first ascent is conventionally credited to surveyors of the late 19th century but is not separately recorded in the main alpine-club minutes of the period.