Riccardo Cassin, who died Aug. 6 at age 100, was a legendary Italian alpinist fondly known as "Il Padre." He was credited with more than 2,500 climbs and 100 first ascents around the world and discovered routes that 70 years later are still considered benchmarks reserved only for the sport's elite. Cassin, who started a premier climbing-equipment company in 1947, died at his home in Piani Resinelli, a town north of Milan.

卡森8月6日去世，享年100歲，他是義大利傳奇登山家，世人愛戴他，尊他為「登山之神」。他最為人稱道的是登上全世界2500多座山峰，還有100次首次攻頂成功紀錄。另外，他還開發登山路線，70年後仍被奉為運動登山精英專屬的標竿。卡森1947年成立最早的登山用品公司，他在米蘭北部小鎮皮亞尼雷希內利過世。

During a 60-year career, Cassin led hundreds of expeditions, including treks through the Alps, the Himalayas, the Caucasus and the Andes. He ascended some of the world's most challenging peaks with equipment today's mountain climbers would consider primitive.

在60年的登山生涯中，卡森曾數百次率隊攻頂成功，包括登上阿爾卑斯山、喜馬拉雅山、高加索山和安地斯山。他用今天登山客認為很原始的器材和設備，登上世上一些最具挑戰性的山峰。

Cassin willingly sought out the world's most audacious and riskiest routes. In July 1961, he led a team up Mount McKinley in Alaska -- the highest peak in North America -- over a precarious southern ridge previously deemed impossible to traverse. More than 300 climbers have died so far on expeditions up Mount McKinley, which is 20,320 feet high. Temperatures on the face have been recorded as low as 100 below zero. Weather can be so unpredictable that a consecutive 12-hour climbing window is considered a godsend.

卡森主動尋找世上最大膽和冒險的路線。1961年7月，他帶隊攻上北美最高峰：阿拉斯加麥肯尼峰，但他是沿著過去公認不可能攀登、驚險萬分的南脊攻頂成功。至今已有300多名登山客在企圖攻上海拔20320呎高的麥肯尼峰時死亡。紀錄顯示，麥肯尼峰表面溫度可以低到零下100度，氣候難測，瞬息萬變，一連12小時的垂直攀岩已經算是「天公作美」。

Cassin's trip was no different. He chose a southern route that experts at the time asserted was "unclimbable," because it had a sheer granite face that ascended 10,000 vertical feet in just 1.6 miles that "no man could scale." Only five of the 30 days the Italians spent on the mountain were climbable. All six were hospitalized afterward for frostbite.

卡森攻頂之路沒什麼不同，他選擇南面山脊路徑，當時專家堅稱「爬不上去」，因為它有個純花崗岩的表面，在短短1.6哩內垂直攀升一萬呎，因此「沒有人攻頂成功」。卡森在山上的30天中，只有5天在爬可以攀登的山峰，後來全隊6人都凍傷住院。

The team's success on what is now known as "Cassin Ridge" made international news. President John F. Kennedy sent Cassin a telegram offering "warmest congratulations," calling the frigid trip a "splendid mountaineering feat." Cassin told Climbing magazine that Kennedy had intended to meet the mountaineer at Mount McKinley's base but that the president could not make it because of continuing political repercussions from the Bay of Pigs incident that April.

這支登山隊成功登上現在眾所周知的「卡森山脊」後成為國際新聞。約翰．甘迺迪總統還拍賀電，給卡森「最誠摰的祝福」，並稱這趟酷寒的行程是「一次精彩傑出的登山壯舉」。卡森告訴《登山雜誌》，甘迺迪原本有意在麥肯尼峰山腳接見卡森，惜因那年4月發生豬玀灣事件，政治影響持續發酵，總統不克到場。

Cassin was notable for navigating up mountains by intuition and down them by memory. Fosco Maraini, the Italian ethnographer and travel writer who accompanied Cassin on multiple expeditions, learned this firsthand. "There is something indestructible about this man; Paleolithic and Neanderthalish. Climbing with him you sense an inner force utterly alien to our complicated, mechanized, intellectualized world," Maraini told the authors of "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America." Cassin had "a supreme and subtle contact with rocks and sky, with ice and wind. Any Zen master would claim him as one of his own."

義大利民族誌學家兼旅遊作家馬瑞尼曾陪卡森數次登山，他第一手發現，卡森以憑直覺攻頂和靠記憶下山知名。「這個人有些堅不可摧的特質，一種舊石器時代尼安德塔人穴居的本質。跟他一起登山，你可以感受到一股內在的力量，和我們這個複雜、機械化、知性的世界完全格格不入。」馬瑞尼告訴《攀登北美50大經典山峰》的作者群。卡森「和山岩及天空、冰雪和風暴有種至高無上的微妙接觸，任何禪學大師都會認為他是入室弟子。」

The younger Cassin left home at age 17 to work the bellows at a blacksmith forge in Lecco, a small valley village nestled near the southeastern neck of Lake Como. His first passion had been boxing, but on the weekends, Cassin accompanied his ragtag group of friends that called themselves the "Ragni Di Lecco," or spiders of Lecco, on climbing trips to the smaller local 7,000-foot summits. Cassin soon dropped boxing because climbing slowed his reflexes in the ring. Shortly thereafter, the Ragni began to take on more ambitious climbs, including three of the Alps' famous North Faces.

少年卡森17歲離家，到科莫湖東南狹長地帶附近一個山谷小城萊科一家鐵匠舖拉風箱。他起先熱中拳擊，但周末卡森會陪他那群出身貧窮的各路朋友，一道去攀登當地海拔7000呎的較小山峰，他們自稱「萊科蜘蛛」登山隊。卡森很快就放棄打拳，因為登山使他在拳擊場上反應較遲頓。不久後，蜘蛛登山隊展開企圖心更大的登山活動，包括阿爾卑斯山三大有名難登的「北壁」。

"We had no money but a very strong passion for climbing," Cassin told the London Independent in 2008. "We pitched in 5 cents each and bought a 50-metre rope and some carabiners. Unfortunately, eight of us had to tie into the rope, so we took turns: two at a time would go up, and then they'd throw the rope down and up went the next two."

卡森2008年告訴《倫敦獨立報》：「我們沒有錢，有的只是那股強烈的登山熱情。每人出5分錢，買50公尺長的登山繩和一些登山鎖扣，但我們8個人得綁在繩子上，最後只好輪流上山，一次兩個人，他們再把繩子扔下，讓後兩個人上去。」

In 1937, he embarked on a three-day climb up Piz Badile, which had never been scaled. Cassin and his team ascended safely and also rescued two climbers who had been stranded in the middle of a blizzard for 12 hours. The two groups joined for the perilous descent, but the stranded climbers died of exhaustion on the way down. A year later, Cassin completed his crowning achievement: the first ascent of the Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses on the Mont Blanc massif. They reached the summit in 82 hours.

1937年，他展開三天攀登從來沒人爬過的巴戴爾峰壯舉，卡森及其團隊安全攻頂，還救回兩名因暴風雪被困山中達12小時的登山客。這兩支登山隊齊心合力冒險下山，但被困的兩名登山客下山途中精疲力盡，衰竭死亡。一年後，卡森完成他這一生登峰造極之作：首次登上白朗峰群中的大喬拉斯峰沃克肋稜，他們在82小時內攻頂成功。

To mark the 50th anniversary of his first ascent of Piz Badile, Cassin climbed his route again step-by-step. However, no press had arrived in time to cover the event. So four days later, Cassin, then 78, climbed Piz Badile again, this time with a Swedish journalist there to report it. "I'm stubborn," Cassin told the Independent. "What I start, I have to finish."

為了慶祝第一次攀登巴戴爾峰成功50周年紀念，卡森一步一腳印重登這座山，但所有媒體都來不及採訪，因此，四天後，當時已78高齡的卡森再爬一次巴戴爾峰，這回有位瑞士記者在場採訪。卡森告訴獨立報：「我很牛，不管什麼事，我一定有始有終。」

In this photo made available Aug. 12, 2009, Cassin celebrates his 100th birthday in his home in Piani Resinelli, at the foot of the Alps, Jan. 2, 2009.

在這張今年8月12日發布的照片中（美聯社），卡森今年1月2日在位於阿爾卑斯山腳下小鎮，皮亞尼雷希內利老家慶祝百歲誕辰。