On September 13, 1850, the 28-year-old Johann Coaz and his helpers reach the highest peak of the Swiss Engadine and the Italian Valtellina. Because the highest point of the Canton of Graubünden, now measured at 4048.6 meters, does not yet have a name, Coaz calls it Piz Bernina.

In 1922, on the 100th birthday of Coaz, an honorary SAC member, the Bernina Section mounts a memorial plaque in honor of Bernina’s first climber. In 1926 the Chamanna Coaz is inaugurated in the remotest corner of Val Roseg. But one will look in vain for a Piz Coaz on the map of Switzerland. Shortly before his death Coaz recalls: “On the second day after the first ascent I went to Samaden and informed my friends in the Casino of the first ascent of the Bernina, but met only with doubting smiles, because the Bernina was considered unconquerable. Only at the entrance to the village, where the Hotel Bernina stands today, was I able convince the gentlemen of the first ascent of the Bernina when, with the telescope, I showed them the flag fluttering on the summit.”