Dolomite Mountains Guide Biography

Dolomite Mountains guides are passionate, experienced mountain enthusiasts who work year round in the outdoor industry, hold the highest guide certifications, and are dedicated to providing our guests an exceptional experience.

You will find your guide very familiar with the local terrain, culture, food and customs -- you’re in their back yard after all! Most importantly, they are fun to be with and dedicated to making sure you have an outstanding experience and enjoy your trip in the Dolomites!

LUCA GASPARINI, born in 1965, has been skiing since he was seven years old, rock climbing since he was 18, and ice climbing since he was 19. While he is an electrical engineer by training, he is a mountaineer at heart. Luca’s passion for the outdoors has driven him to travel, and he has skied and/or climbed on almost every continent. A native of Italy, Luca achieved his UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide status in 2006. Not only is he an exceptional guide, he has also been able to combine his engineering background with his passion for sport with projects ranging from installing rock climbing walls to teaching rope work and tree climbing safety systems. Working as a heli ski, ski touring, off-track-skiing, ski safari, ice climbing, snow shoeing, rock climbing, trekking, canyoning, and mountaineering guide, somehow he also finds time to compete in mountain biking, ciclocross, and ice climbing events!

KARIN PIZZININI, a Dolomite Mountains hiking guide, was born, raised, and currently resides in the Dolomites, which has given her her plentiful opportunities to pursue outdoor activities year round: she telemark skis, ski tours, hikes, rock climbs, and climbs glaciers, and previously cross country skied and cycled competetively. Since 1995, Karin has been a science and chemistry teacher at the high school in Alta Badia, and has guided her teenage students on countless local and international excursions. She is fluent in six languages: her native Italian, German, and Ladin, in addition to English, French, and Spanish. And her big passions? Travel and photography. Now, in addition to being a hiking guide in her beloved Dolomites, she works as an art director, making documentaries about Ladin arts and culture. Karin says her mission is to transmit knowledge, be it as a teacher, a film director, a writer, or a guide. And guiding, being able to share her enthusiasm with her groups, is certainly one of the things she likes best.

ALBERTO DE GIULI, born in Northern Italy’s Padova, has been visiting the Dolomites since he was a child. He climbed his first via ferrata at age 14, but it was when he took his first climbing course with a guide at age 21 that everything else became secondary. From this experience the desire to become a mountain guide began to burn in him, with the realization that it was possible to make a living while pursuing your passion. Before he began his mountain guide coursework, he studied economics and earned his degree from the University in Venice. Upon completion he moved to Arabba, in the heart of the Dolomites, and began guiding full time. He has been guiding in the Dolomites since 2008, and is an aspiring UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide (he will complete his certification in 2011).

Since childhood GIULIA MONEGO has dedicated herself to her passion for the mountains and snow. This passion took her first from the Venetian waters of her birth to the Dolomites, and then to Verbier in the Swiss Alps which she currently calls home. Between the ages of 13 and 20 Guilia found success in a competitive alpine racing career; more recently she has moved into the world of freeriding and achieved great competetive and personal success. As a professional skier and a passionate mountaineer, Guilia lives to share her love for riding free. She has been teaching skiing since 2002, and guiding since 2006. She loves to meet new people and experience new cultures, so when she is not teaching, guiding, skiing, or competing you can find her traveling the world, exploring new countries and making new friends.

MARCELLO COMINETTI was born in Genoa, Italy, on May 1961. He has lived in a number of places as his father travelled for his job with major oil companies. He began to visit the mountains as a child and had his first experience of mountaineering when he as sixteen. Immediately fascinated by this world, he began to make older friends who had experience of the mountains so that he could learn as much as possible. At eighteen, he was already able to climb a grade 7 mountain and since then he has dedicated his life to climbing and skiing. In 1984 he moved to the Dolomites and at twenty-three, he became a professional UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide and started to make a living from his newfound profession straight away. He has also been an instruction or mountain-guide courses for ten years. Nowadays he divides his time between his children, climbing, skiing, travelling and exploring remote areas. He loves photography and also shoots and edits films. He works with a range of specialist and non-specialist magazines, in particular writing reportages, which he considers to be the best way to portray the mountains.