The first intuition about the possibility of carrying out a ski-mountaineering itinerary on high altitude is due to Ottorino Mezzalama, a great sportsman and mountain lover, who, back in 1920, defined this itinerary as “The track of 2000”. Ottorino Mezzalama dedicated more than ten years of his life to this project, but in 1931 an accident took his life. In 1933 his friends and fellow climbers managed to set up the “Mezzalama Trophy”, a team competition developing along a 45 km mixed itinerary (on snow, rock and ice) at 4,000 m a.s.l., in the superb scenery stretching from the Matterhorn to the range of Mont Rose. Between 1933 and 1938 the competition was held every year; it was then interrupted because of the war; it took place again in 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978, to be suspended again until 1997, when the Trophy was born to a new life. From 1997 onwards, the competition has been held every two years.