In the morning we take a bumpy busdrive up to the ski resort Lizzola. We’re hiking Sentiero delle Orobie Orientale through the Orobie Alps, not the official hike, but our own variant. Originally this hike is not a round trip, but we start in the middle and arrive back at our starting point.
In Lizzola we’re having difficulty finding the right path. We find a sign of the path 200 meters after the path has started. The only path shown in the village is the GR322. If you walk to the upper parking in the village and then walk through the meadow in south-easterly direction, you’ll arrive on the GR307.
It’s a hot day to ascend through the meadows. We pass a shepherd’s hut and move on to Pso. della Manina, where a small chapel has been built. When we arrive a Mass is being held outdoors. We eat our lunch and enjoy the view.
After the chapel we follow the GR401 and arrive at the official Sentiero delle Orobie Orientale. We enjoy the changing landscapes and walk the high route until the lifts near Chalet dell’Aquila. We notice that the paths from the valley to the huts are crowded, but on large parts of the GR401 it is nice and quiet. This year the amount of snow is extreme. This can be seen in the Italian Alps as well. Near Monte Ferrante we encounter the first snowfields we need to cross. Almost at the end of the Sentiero we leave the GR401 and descend over the GR311.
We pitch our tarp near water source l’Occhio dell Ogna. A beautiful spot.
After a good night rest we continu our hike over the GR311. Until township Möschl we can follow the signs and dots of paint easily. In the township they disappear and in real life there are many more paths than shown on our 1:50000 map. At one of the buildings a man just steps outside to hang the laundry. We ask him the way to Ardesio and he confirms we’re walking the right path. Half an hour later we see a stone with painted characters: “Grescala” and an arrow pointing to the right. If we’re on the right path, the arrow should point to the left. Are we on the wrong path?
We’re still wondering where we went wrong when an older man is approaching from Valzurio. First he asks us in Italian: “Vi siete persi?”, immediately followed in English: “Are you lost?” Wonderful! We explain the situation and he’s willing to guide us through the mountains to Ardesio. The alternative is to walk eight kilometers over jeep tracks around the mountain. We don’t feel like doing that.
The man is 72 years old and emigrated to America a long time ago. Originally he’s from this area and he is willing to take us through “his” meadows and footpaths, only known to the locals. He is training, for each year in the third week of June they ascend Monte Ferrante and eat polenta in Möschl afterwards. Of the twelve people starting this tradition, only two are still doing it each year and our guide is one of them. 72 years, unbelievable. For training he’s going for a small mountain top. When he arrives there, he’ll be reading a bit and drink a glass of red wine. We’ve asked him why the Italian Alps are rather unknown abroad, because we mainly meet Italians. He tells us that his generation was working hard and going to church. They didn’t had the urge to develop tourism. The new generation is different, but it’ll take a few years before these things really change. We agree, as we are welcomed and helped very kindly everywhere, despite the language barrier.
When our roads separate, we say our goodbyes and thank him a lot for helping us finding the way and for the nice conversation.
Just after noon we arrive in Ardesio. This is the most boring part of the tour. The Sentiero delle Orobie Orientale is shaped like a U. We bend it to an O by connecting the open ends of the U. That means we have to cross a wide valley. Up to now we’ve descended quite some meters. In Ardesio we can choose to ascend over the road or to wait for a bus. We choose the last option and take the bus to Valcanale. Unfortunately it will leave late in the afternoon.
For Valcanale the route continues via Rifugio Alpe Corte, a few small climbs and plateaus to Rifugio Laghi-Gemelli. This morning we leapfrog with soldiers of the Italian army who are practising in the area. When we arrive at Rifugio Laghi-Gemelli around noon, we decide to eat there. We didn’t take food for all days, because we will be passing mountain huts and this is a good opportunity to save a meal from our backpacks. Actually it doesn’t look like a mountain hut, more like a hotel! They serve from a menu and we eat deer with polenta and a can of soda.
The part after Rifugio Laghi-Gemelli is quite various. We walk over bridges, through tunnels and along the contours of the landscape. A lots of mosquitoes bivouac where we pitch our tarp. As soon as we’re done eating, we flee to our tarp.
At dawn we hear something that sounds like a wheezy, hoarse barking. We think it might be a roe and take a look outside. Nothing to be seen. Judging by the sound it certainly is a fast animal. He doesn’t bark only during dawn, but during the night he comes back a few times to keep us awake. Probably it has been a fox, who was not that happy with our bivouac spot. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to look at him.
During the night is starts to rain and this time we can’t keep everything dry inside our tarp. Just when we’re having breakfast it stops raining and we can leave without getting everything wet. After an hour we arrive at Rifugio Calvi. A bit later we need to cross the river Brembo. By stepping from stone to stone we manage to cross. We’re happy we did it by using stepstones as the bridge is lying broken on the shore a few hundred meters upstream.
We can barely see the col we need to go to, before the clouds obscure the view to it. We exchange our walking sticks for pickels and start our climb on the snow. In the guidebook we use it is written that on this col there is a high chance of seeing ibex. It is true, we see some ibex as well here.
We pass bivacco Frattini, an oranje soda can built on the mountain ridge. It is emphasized that the hut has been built on the ridge by the clouds that reach just until the ridge.
According to our guidebook we will encounter a difficult river crossing near Valle del Salto. To make the crossing easier, chains would have been put up. Not when we arrive there, the chains have been washed away, so we had to jump the river. After our crossing it starts to rain again. We cautiously walk over the slate ledges and arrive at Rifugio Brunone wet. We decide to spend the night in the hut.
From here two options start to continu on the Sentiero delle Orobie. The original high path or the lower footpath. When the weater is bad the low path is recommended. We’re in doubt about what option to choose, while this year there is still an extreme amount of snow (and we’re not that experienced in snow) and there are a lot of clouds that makes navigation hard. In the evening we ask the host of the hut for the conditions of the snow and the weather forecast. He’s very good in making us enthusiastic for the high route. In the morning it’s still overcast. When we pay for our stay the host starts talking about the high route again. He explains where to watch out and how to recognise the best route. The most difficult part is just after the hut, we can have a look and if it is not possible for us, we can always return and take the lower route. He emphasizes again that we should try the high route, because it is much more beautiful than the lower one.
He is right. It is a beautiful route indeed, between Rifugio Brunone and Rifugio Coca. Very well recommended and not too difficult. We’ve enjoyed ourselves and expanded our experience in steep snow.
Rifugio Coca is filled with the soldiers we met earlier. We ask for the weather forecast and the route to the top. Then we pitch our tarp.
When we wake up at 5.15 the sky is blue. We start our route to Pizzo di Coca and soon we spot two ibex. They walk past us. Not much further we pass a group of ibex. What a beautiful, gallant animals, masters in the mountains. The males are fighting for their position in the group and they don’t care about the two humans filling up their memory card with photographs.
After a col and a snow field we arrive at the nameless col at 2719 m. At the col is the crossroad to the summit. Next is third grade scrambling. Not Fred’s specialty. According to our altimeter we have to scramble for 300 m to the top, while the clouds are slowly filling the valley. While we are doubting to continu, two Italians return from the summit. It took them one hour to get to the summit, that just disappeared behind the clouds. We revert. Regrettably…
We return to our tarp, pack it and continu to Rifugio Curó. First a footpath up, then following the contour along the side of Valle Seriana, sometimes secured by chains. At one spot a rock the size of a refrigerator fell on the chain. After Pso. del Corno, which is less of a col than the nameless col, we see the rifugio. It’s an easy descend through the meadows. We feel a bit tired by the efforts this morning and pitch our tarp at a small beach of pebbles along a river in Valmorta. No peg can be used here, so we use some large rocks. In the valley a shepherd walks with his large flock of sheep.
We have some thunderstorms this night, although they weren’t predicted. The forecast is not particularly accurate.
In half an hour we walk to Rifugio Curó which is filled with daytrippers. Over GR305 we return to Valbondione, where we left our car. Just before we arrive we have to take shelter for a big shower.
Photos
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Bibliography
Dominicus Adventure
Bergwandelen in de Italiaanse Alpen
Henk Filippo
ISBN 978 90 257 4403 8
Kompass Carta escursioni | bike | sci alpinismo
1:50 000
104 Foppolo / Valle Seriana
Hiking around the world 