Welcome to the homepage of the ICAR-Congress 2023, which will take place in Dobbiaco from 17 to 21 October 2023. With this venue in the heart of the Dolomites, the perfect location for such an event was found. The Euregio Congress and Cultural Centre Gustav Mahler, at the entrance to the idyllic Landro- Valley, which is also the starting point for excursions in the Three Peaks area, offers the necessary infrastructure for such an international event. Certainly, the cultural centre in Dobbiaco cannot compete with the big centres of the world, but it clearly stands for closeness to nature, mountaineering and last but not least for the alpine history of the entire Alpine region and thus reflects the values of all alpine associations and of course also of the mountain rescue service.

The Bergrettungsdienst im Alpenverein Südtirol is the organizer of the ICAR-Congress 2023 and welcomes you and is looking forward to your visit in South Tyrol.

 Mountain rescue can look back on a long history in South Tyrol, because mountain tourism took off at the end of the 19th century and with it the first documented mountain rescue operations. At that time, the local alpine associations took over the rescues without specially trained personnel, but after the Second World War, with the readmission of the alpine associations, the first mountain rescue stations came into being and on 6 March 1948 they founded the Bergrettungsdienst im Alpenverein Südtirol. With this foundation, the first mountain rescue service in the whole of Italy was officially established. At that time, the Bergrettungsdienst im Alpenverein Südtirol consisted of 9 mountain rescue stations, but today there are 35, which together with the national mountain rescue service CNSAS watch over the whole of South Tyrol.

In 1955, Südtirol was once again at the centre of mountain rescue scene. On 28 and 29 October, mountain rescue organisations from the Alpine countries met in Bolzano to found ICAR, at that time still IKAR (Internationale Kommission für Alpines Rettungswesen). Today, the Bergrettungsdienst im Alpenverein Südtirol is made up of a total of 1,050 volunteer mountain rescuers who, together with the CNSAS (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico), provide the mountain rescue service for Italy's second largest province. On average, the association carries out around 1,400 - 1,500 rescue missions a year.