Path lenght:
Ceresole Reale
Serrù dam
18 Km
800 mt
Medium
No
December
A beautiful hike in the heart of the Alps, the Gran Paradiso National Park
ORCO'S CHAMOIS
Path lenght: 16 km.
Trekking date: december
Orco's chamois
We share the coordinates:
45.445077, 7.204366
(Copy and paste in Google Maps search label).
Useful information:
The winter journey up to the Serrù dam coincides with the asphalt road that reaches the Nivolet hill, which at this time of year is covered in snow. Taking other paths could be risky due to the danger of avalanches. If the risk of avalanches is significant, it is necessary to equip oneself with an avalanche transceiver.
For those who stay for at least one night, we recommend going around Lake Ceresole Reale, which in winter can enchant anyone.
If you want to have lunch in this valley, stop at the Osteria dei Viaggiatori, in Frera Superiore, where you will be hit by a riot of flavours!
Gran Paradiso National Park
The Gran Paradiso National Park is an authentic Italian natural jewel, and is the kingdom of the ibex, an animal that risked becoming extinct due to indiscriminate hunting.
The species was considered extinct for a long time, but towards the beginning of the 19th century a woman discovered that a colony of 100 animals lived on the Gran Paradiso massif.
The news reached the king of the nascent kingdom of Sardinia, who with a decree prohibited the hunting of the animal.
Obviously it was not a choice dictated by an environmentalist soul, but by the desire to indulge in an exclusive royal luxury, which nevertheless served to safeguard the species.
The Gran Paradiso area became a royal hunting reserve thanks to King Emanuele II of Italy, who moved with his entourage in August to hunt the largest specimens.
Puppies and females were spared from the hunt and, no longer having man as an enemy, repopulated this area.
The park then became National in 1922, but still had to go through the dark period of fascism and the Second World War, where surveillance lost its effectiveness and poaching by the local population became necessary to survive.
The ibex numbers dropped dramatically to 400, but just after the end of the war, in 1947, the national park became the entity that everyone knows today, where the entire ecosystem is protected. Today the ibex thrives as it once did throughout the Alps, with an estimate exceeding 50,000 units.
Description
For the holiday of December 8th, we chose to spend a couple of days in the Orco valley, staying in Locana, a picturesque town where there is a historic gastronomy where we stocked up on tasty local products.
The heavy snowfalls that often occur in the Ceresole area allow you to practice many winter sports such as cross-country skiing and ice climbing; Ski mountaineering is also very popular, because the Canavese area does not have noteworthy ski areas like the nearby Val d'Aosta.
This factor, combined with the presence of the Gran Paradiso Park, has contributed to making the area a very quiet winter place.
Silence accompanied us throughout the excursion we made up to the Serrù dam, with the snow that muffled and covered the road, the woods and the prairies on which small groups of chamois grazed in search of food.
Everything was painted in a majestic white that enveloped everything, and time seemed to have stopped.
The winter route is practically the asphalt road that climbs up to the Nivolet hill, because it is the only practicable one.
The first part is very simple, but when you get to the first hairpin bends the matter becomes more and more complicated, bordering on practicable without snowshoes.
We were the only ones of the day who wanted to continue, and after almost 3 hours our stubbornness was rewarded with the view of the dam.
We celebrated with a very frugal lunch, in the company of a ski mountaineer, under the completely frozen bus shelter, after which we headed back down to the valley.
Before undertaking this trip, it is advisable to get information to check the usability and the risk of avalanches and, if necessary, equip yourself with ARVA systems.
We traveled the route with a quantity of snow that was still below average, and in fact we didn't have to use snowshoes, but we were very lucky: at Serrù the snow that fell usually exceeds 2 metres!
trekking Map.
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