The Italian Alpine club was founded the 23rd October 1863 in the "Castello del Valentino, in Turin, at 1300 in the afternoon" as we read in the " minutes of the first meeting of its members".
An idea of Quintino Sella and three of his friends came to light during one of their climbs to the summit of Monviso, a club was born, as had already been established in Great Britain and Austria, a group of alpinists who immediately developed and spread this idea from Turin to other cities and towns, from the Alpes to Central Italy.

Today the CAI club has more than 300,000 members, enroled in the 470 sections distributed on the whole national terrirtory.

One hundred and fifty years of history and activity in favour of the mountain, shown by enthusiatic and willing volunteers.
- 744 structures, refuges, bivachs, assistance points, social and emergency shelters
- pathways and tracks, culture, environment
- safety in the mountain
- formation
- 4,000 instructors of the different alpinistic disciplines: alpinism, alpine skiing, free climbing, youth alpinism, cross-country excursionistic skiing, excursionism.

A network expansion on all the terrirtory thanks to the numerous Sections which enjoy full autonomy regarding all enterprises and actions in order to exploit the mountain environment by praticing all the alpinistic disciplines, the knowledge and the research of the mountains - especially the Italian area and the defence of the natural terrirtory.

Civil protection service is guaranteed, for alpinists and mountain people, by the National Alpine and Speleologic Emergency Corps of the CAI in which approximately 7,000 volunteers operate.

A world of people, activities and ideas all dedicated to the mountains.