This stage allows us to discover the Devero “great east”, a roughly 7 km long tableland on almost flat surfaces around 2,000 m above mean sea level: Alpine prairies, high-altitude grazing flock, abundant Alpine pastures some of which are still loaded, snow lakes, marmots, and all of this around the Devero mountains. The itinerary, which is one of the most renown and treaded, is also known as the “cheese way” (“via del formaggio”) because in these Alps the Bettelmatt cheese, a fat cheese obtained from whole milk which conserves the smell of quality high-altitude mountain herbs, is produced. The itinerary passes by five Alpine pastures: Sangiatto and Forno are still full of grazing cows during the putting out to pasture of such cows in the summer; Valle and Corbernas have been abandoned and its Alpine lodges and stables are falling apart; la Satta was abandoned but the Alpine pasture has been recently refurbished by the Devero Park Vigil, so it now comes equipped with a water duct and solar panels and will soon once return to being functional. The layout of these Alpine pastures is typical of these valleys: we have the cheese production place, where cheese is produced and the people that produce it live, and then we have a separate stable. The Satta Alp stable (whose surface area covers twenty-two by six meters) witnesses the times when these Alpine pastures were of paramount importance to the survival of local communities.
From the Ai Ponti rural community in the Devero municipality we coast the Devero Torrent following the Arbola Way (Via dell’Arbola) historical path (track number H00) which goes up the woods up to Crampiolo. Just before the Alp we take the detour towards the Sangiatto Alp (path H16) first passing a beautiful floating peat-bog studied by the Park via the LIFE NATURA project and then via a wide walk along the mountainside we stride along the whole valley up to the intersection with a tractor trail near the Sangiatto Alp (2010 meters above mean sea level). From here onwards we proceed along the plain coasting the second small lake (path H12) and keeping always in the centre of the small valley we come out of the hill and go down the Corbernas Alp. From here onwards we follow along mostly flat wide tracts while keeping on the bottom of a nice small valley with peat-bogs up until we reach the Valley Alp (Alpe della Valle). Having crossed the torrent we immediately take the path on the left which via a long traversal across the mountainside goes up to the La Satta Alp (recently refurbished by the Devero Park Vigil). Just before the Alp we cross a small torrent and via one last faint way-up we get to the great prairies which amid small lakes, cotton-grass blossoming, marmots, and cows out to pasture, take us to the Lower Forno Alp at an altitude of 2,222 m above mean sea level where we meet the H98 trail of the classic Devero-Formazza traversal. Following these directions we proceed along grassy ridges and wide high-altitude prairies up to where after a steep brief tract we enter the small valley that leads to a basin under the Scatta Minoia Mountain Pass. Here the environment becomes full of rocks and via one last tract along the mountainside we reach the Ettore Conti shelter.
The way down is briefer than the way up and at the beginning goes through the rocks up to reaching the Curzalma Alp basin. Cutting through the mountainside we go down till we coast the Vannino Lake and in a brief amount of time we get back to the Margaroli Mountain Hut dam zone.
THE TOUR:
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
THE LEGS OF THIS TOUR:
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 1: Varzo – Veglia Alp
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 2: Veglia Alp– Devero Alp
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 3: Devero Alp – Vannino Lake (Margaroli Alpine Hut)
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 4: Vannino Lake (Margaroli Alpine Hut) - Riale
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 5: Riale – Ronco (Switzerland)
ALPINE PASTURES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Tour – Stage 6: Ronco (CH) – Airolo (CH)
Last update: 07/03/2018 ore 16:53:02