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Italy - GTA I · 2021

2021 Italy - Grande Traversata delle Alpi (GTA) - I

30 August 2021

A winding mountain road with hairpin bends climbs through a green gorge beneath a snow-capped peak.
An old arched stone viaduct crosses a rocky gorge, its tunnel portal set into the sheer cliff behind. A weathered stone bridge spans a rocky mountain torrent below green cliffs. A mosaic relief with historic figures is set into a rock face above the road. A narrow road threads a wide alpine valley beneath snow-flecked peaks. A still mountain lake lies low in a grassy bowl ringed by snowy ridges. A road sign welcomes travellers to the crest of the Gotthard Pass. A green valley town and winding highway are seen from a mountain vantage. Ochre houses crowd a wooded shore beside a wide blue lake. A cosy timbered bedroom opens onto a terrace with a view. Stone benches and a palm tree sit on a gravel terrace above a deep green valley. Rustic slate roofs and old chimneys rise before a towering green slope. A balcony house with green shutters is flanked by palm trees below a mountain. A porch of stone pillars holds a woodpile and potted pink blossoms. A stone obelisk stands on a lawn before a white wall painted with village scenes. An aged house with peeling plaster rises among greenery beneath a forested slope. Tiled roofs and warmly lit homes rest between dark mountain silhouettes. A dark mountain looms by night while a lit window glows below the railing. Old stone buildings sit in a sunlit green meadow beneath wooded mountains. A tiny stone chapel with a faded fresco stands in a sunny meadow. A stone shrine with a faded painted panel sits before rustic mountain houses. An old stone house with a timber roof and scaffolding stands in a sunny lane. Firewood and branches fill the rustic interior of a stone barn. Stone ruin walls overgrown with greenery stand beside a surviving house. A large traditional stone house stands on a steep grassy slope. A tall square stone tower rises against a clear blue sky. A weathered stone wall rises among leafy trees on a sunny hillside A narrow plank bridge crosses a rocky stream leading to an alpine village Stone houses and a bell tower cluster on a steep green mountainside A narrow path crosses bright green alpine meadows toward distant peaks A fenced footbridge crosses a rocky gorge in a green mountain valley Verdant mountains and a small hut fill a sweeping high valley A glaciated mountain summit looms behind a dark green ridge in the foreground A slab-stone terrace looks out over a valley to far snowy peaks Deep blue wildflowers open amid sunlit mountain grass. Small stone houses dot a bright meadow beneath a snow-streaked rock face. A walking path edges a high cliff above a forested valley. A stone cottage sits amid lush green trees on a steep slope. An old stone hut stands beneath a high cliff beside a narrow path. Old stone houses with slate roofs cluster beneath a green valley. A carved animal head spout pours water into a stone basin. A frescoed shrine niche opens behind an ornate iron gate. A weathered hillside shrine fades into frescoes around a candle-lit Madonna altar. A stone recess is crowded with weathered wooden grave crosses and red votive candles. A tall weathered chapel with peeling frescoes stands beside a steep alpine slope. A hiker's backpack and trekking poles lean against a stone wall on a green path. A cluster of old stone houses sits on a grassy ridge beneath a blue summer sky. A wildflower-strewn meadow falls toward a deep green valley ringed by mountains. A weathered stone bell tower stands alone in a grass clearing above a mountain valley. A small waterfall spills down mossy steps between ferns and dense green forest. A rustic stone arch bridge spans a rocky alpine stream in green woodland. Houses crowd a mountain valley with an old stone bridge over a rocky stream. An abandoned stone dwelling with wooden doors stands quiet among trees and bare earth. A dirt path threads past green trees and yellow wildflowers toward distant mountains. Old stone homes perch on a grassy slope backed by towering mountains under blue sky. A wide grassy meadow with a stone path and small huts lies beneath rocky mountains. A table laid with wine, salad, and omelettes overlooks a bright green mountain valley. A thorny green thistle plant is seen in sharp macro detail against a soft green background. Ancient grey stone walls on a green ridge barely visible through dense white fog. A crumbling stone tower with empty windows rises from a foggy green hillside. Carved columns and weathered arches frame a misty green hillside and stone path. A winding trail descends a lush hillside into a valley with a rocky stream. A weathered stone hut with a slab roof and wooden stairs stands in a mountain meadow. Rustic stone houses with slate roofs flank a cobbled lane, bunting overhead and a chicken crossing. A bell tower and shuttered houses rise above a stone-walled stream in a mountain village. Alpine chalets and a pointed church spire line a waterfall-laced stream through the valley. A warm yellow church with a broad arcade of arches fronts a cobbled mountain square. A cluster of slate-roofed houses lies in a wide green valley ringed by forested mountains. A weathered stone hut with a timber gallery perches alone on a steep grassy slope. A weathered ochre townhouse rises tall with shuttered windows, iron balconies and a glassed-in upper veranda. A tight cobbled lane winds between stone houses with wooden balconies and carved shutters. A lush hillside garden of purple, pink and blue bloom spills toward a village of stone chalets. Two alpine chalets of stone and timber stand side by side on a grassy hillside. A derelict stone cabin with a rusty tin roof clings to a fog-wrapped mountainside. An old stone bridge spans a boulder-strewn stream beneath a wooded mountainside. A small wooden-roofed shrine holds a painted statue above a stone trough. A yellow plastered house stands behind an arch bridge in a green mountain village. A stone-paved path winds between grey boulders and larch trees in misty high country. A cluster of rustic stone buildings sits on a grassy slope beneath craggy peaks in the mist. A slab-built stone shelter with a boarded door stands on a misty mountainside. A grey mountainside holding thin patches of snow drops into swirling fog. Flat slabs and small stone cairns mark a grey scree slope fading into dense fog. Rustic stone huts with a picnic terrace face misty green alpine slopes. A mossy boulder shelters a stone building with a weathered wooden door. Old timber and white-plastered houses stand together on a mountain slope.
Journal Notes

General

The Grande Traversata delle Alpi is a long-distance trail of about 1,000 kilometres in roughly 55 day stages, following the arc that the western Alps describe through Piedmont. It runs from the Pennine Alps through the Graian and Cottian ranges to the Maritime and Ligurian Alps, linking the transverse valleys of the region by the historic passes that once connected their communities. The route begins at Molini di Calasca in the Valle Anzasca, ends at Viozene in the Ormea area and reaches its lowest point, 295 metres, at Quincinetto.

Piedmont is the second largest region of Italy, with 25,387 square kilometres and about 4,255,000 inhabitants, and its name comes from the medieval Latin ad pedem montium, at the foot of the mountains. It borders France to the west and Switzerland to the north, the Aosta Valley in the north-west, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna to the east and Liguria to the south, and it holds the southern side of the Alps from the Ligurian range to Monte Rosa.

The GTA crosses one valley after another: the Anzasca, Valsesia, the Chiusella and Soana valleys, the Lanzo valleys, the Susa valley and then, south of it, the Chisone, Germanasca, Pellice, Varaita, Maira, Grana, Stura di Demonte, Gesso and Vermenagna valleys. Each of them had its own language. The Valsesia has been settled by Walser since the Middle Ages, Arpitan was spoken in the Lanzo valleys, Piedmontese in the lower Susa valley, and Occitan south of the Susa valley; Italian spread only during the First World War.

The landscape the trail crosses was cultivated and densely populated until the twentieth century, . The valleys of the GTA lost about 80 per cent of their population between 1870 and 2000, and the upper communities between 90 and 95 per cent; hamlets that once held a hundred people are down to one or two elderly residents, and the heirs of the old families return as summer visitors while most houses fall into disrepair. The trail often follows the old mule paths, the mulattiere, and passes chestnut woods destroyed by a blight in the nineteenth century, and terraces and boundary walls remain above the villages.

Walking the GTA is unlike walking an engineered long-distance path. It is usually free of snow from the end of June, it holds no technical difficulty, but its marking is irregular: red and white signs, some of them carrying GTA or SI, and stretches shared with the Sentiero Italia and the Via Alpina. A typical day climbs and descends between 600 and 1,200 metres, and in the northern part some stages are long. The accommodation is the posto tappa, a guesthouse or farm marked with the red and white GTA flag, usually with half board, ranging from a dormitory in an old school building to a room in a private house. About 1,000 long-distance walkers use the route each season, most of them from German-speaking countries, .

History

The Alps were a corridor long before they were a recreation ground. In the first century BC the kingdom of Cottius held the passes between Italy and Gaul, and Augustus made an alliance with the Segusini so that a road could be built through the Susa valley and over the Montgenèvre; the son and grandson of Cottius ruled as client kings until the emperor Claudius gave Marcus Julius Cottius II the title of king, and on his death Nero annexed the territory as the province of Alpes Cottiae. Turin, the Roman Augusta Taurinorum, and Ivrea, Eporedia, became the two colonies of the plain, and the roads over the central Alps carried the traffic of the empire.

In the Middle Ages the same roads carried pilgrims. The Via Francigena, the road from Canterbury through France and Switzerland to Rome and on to the ports of Apulia, crossed the Alps here,. Above the Susa valley stands the Sacra di San Michele, the abbey on Mount Pirchiriano whose crypt was built in the late tenth century and whose history was written by a monk of the house in the eleventh; it is entitled the symbolic monument of Piedmont and served Umberto Eco as one of the models for The Name of the Rose. South of the mountains the marquisate of Saluzzo held the country between the Alps, the Po and the Stura from 1142 until 1548.

The passes were fortified when they became a frontier. The Fenestrelle fortress, built for the House of Savoy between 1728 and 1850 to the designs of Ignazio Bertola, guards the road to Turin through the Chisone valley: it is the largest alpine fortification in Europe, covering 130 hectares between about 1,100 and 1,800 metres of altitude. In the Stura di Demonte valley the Forte Albertino at Vinadio did the same duty further south, and above it, at roughly 2,000 metres, the sanctuary of Sant’Anna di Vinadio is the highest place of Christian worship in Europe.

The twentieth century emptied the valleys and then began to bring people back. The First World War turned the mountain communities into border country and changed their languages; the Waldensian valleys, the Chisone, Germanasca and Pellice, kept a religious minority of their own; the Resistance operated in these mountains after 1943; and the decades after 1945 took the young away to Turin and the factories, leaving the terraces to the forest. The rivers were dammed for hydroelectricity, and new small plants are still disputed in the valleys. Walking tourism has become the most recent use of the paths.

The GTA is a child of the 1970s. It grew out of a similar trail established in France around 1970, and in the middle of that decade a group of Turin mountain enthusiasts, gathered around the Rivista della Montagna and the Libreria della Montagna, set out to trace a long-distance route along the whole Piedmontese arc. The volunteers formed the Associazione GTA, organised the overnight accommodation and marked the paths, and public money followed. The route had its boom as early as 1979, with up to 300 overnight hikers on a single section in a season, and since 1985 Werner Bätzing has presented it in the German-speaking world as an example of environmentally friendly tourism.

Geology

The western Alps that the GTA traverses are the product of the collision of the African and Apulian plates with Eurasia, . Most of the rocks along the route belong to the Penninic nappes, the stack with the highest grade of metamorphism in the Alps, made of ophiolites and deep-sea sediments that were deposited between the two plates and then buried, folded and metamorphosed into serpentinite, phyllite, schist and amphibolite. Above and beside them lie the great European-derived massifs such as Monte Rosa and the Dent Blanche nappe, a fragment of Africa carried far to the north.

The Piedmont zone is the signature of the inner side of the arc: a belt of meta-ophiolites, the remains of the ocean floor of the Tethys and the Valais ocean, which now form the green and dark rocks of the middle slopes. In the upper Viù valley, one of the Lanzo valleys, the internal Piedmont zone shows its full structural evolution, and the meta-ophiolite units of the western Alps have been dated to establish when they were exhumed from depth. Near Monte Viso the same rocks include jadeitite, a stone formed under high pressure and long quarried in the Alps for axes and ornaments.

The Ivrea zone, north of Turin on the inner side of the chain, is a steeply dipping slice of the lower continental crust of the Apulian plate that was uplifted and stripped of its cover by erosion, so that granulites, marbles and mafic intrusions formed twenty kilometres down now stand at the surface. Bodies of mantle peridotite lie within it, and the geophysical data show the mantle unusually close beneath them. Together with the Penninic nappes and the ophiolite belt, the zone makes the Piedmont Alps one of the best places in Europe to read a mountain chain from the inside.

The shapes of the valleys are the work of ice and water. Cirques, moraines and U-shaped troughs record the glaciers of the last cold period, and the higher massifs still carry ice: the Gran Paradiso, at 4,061 metres the highest mountain entirely in Italy, rises in the middle of its national park, and Monte Viso, the highest peak of the Cottian Alps, is known as il Re di Pietra, the Stone King, because it stands some 500 metres above everything around it. It was declared a cross-border UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2013, and at its foot, at the Pian del Re at 2,020 metres, the Po begins its course as the longest river in Italy.

The mountains are still active, and the trail crosses ground that moves. The inner Cottian Alps are seismically monitored because the faults of the chain run through them, and the valleys carry the evidence of landslides, rockfalls and floods, with stone bridges at the crossings that the torrents have spared. Rainfall in these mountains is heavy, and research in the summer pastures of the Piedmontese Alps has shown how much of it seeps away at shallow depth instead of running off. Above the tree line the larch takes over from the broadleaved forest, and the chestnut woods of the lower slopes, once managed for flour and timber, are still recovering from the blight of the nineteenth century.

Things to See

The northern end of the GTA begins in the Pennine Alps on the eastern side of Piedmont. The route starts at Molini di Calasca in the Valle Anzasca, climbs to the Alpe del Lago and over the Colle dell’Usciolo into the Valstrona, and continues over the Bocchetta di Campello to Rimella and Santa Maria di Fobello, two villages of Walser origin in the upper Sesia. Further south the Colle d’Egua, at 2,239 metres, and the Colle del Termo, at 2,351 metres, lead to Carcoforo and Rima, and the path passes below Monte Rosa to Alagna and the Val Vogna. The villages here are built of stone and timber against the snow.

From Valsesia the route turns south into the Biella Alps and over the Santuario di Oropa, a pilgrimage church at 1,180 metres, then across the Colle della Colma and down to San Giovanni d’Andorno. Beyond it the ridge of the Colle della Lace leads to the lowest point of the whole traverse, the railway station of Quincinetto at 295 metres, where the Dora Baltea leaves the Aosta Valley and enters the plain.

The Graian Alps follow, and with them the valleys north of Turin. The trail crosses the Val Chiusella over the Bocchetta delle Oche, at 2,415 metres, and the Val Soana past Ronco Canavese, then the Ribordone and the Alpe di Colla, before it reaches the three Lanzo valleys of Viù, Ala and Grande. Above them stands the Gran Paradiso National Park, Italy’s first national park, created in 1922 from a royal hunting reserve to save the Alpine ibex, and the paths that were laid out for the animals a century ago are now part of the walking network.

The Susa Valley is the midpoint of the route, reached after 26 sections, and it is where the trail meets the oldest traffic of the Alps. The Via Francigena comes over the Mont Cenis and descends through Susa, and above the valley the Sacra di San Michele stands on its rock with the village clustered below it. On the other side of the valley the Fenestrelle fortress climbs the mountainside above the Chisone, a wall of stone and stairs that was built to stop an army and now takes visitors instead. Both the Fréjus rail tunnel and the road tunnel run beneath this ground to Modane.

South of the Susa Valley the country changes character. The route crosses the Chisone, Germanasca and Pellice valleys, the three Waldensian valleys, where the churches are plain and the history is one of dissent and persecution, and then the Po valley above its source. The Monte Viso bypass uses two huts of the Club Alpino Italiano, The marks of the old economy are everywhere: stone barns with slab roofs, dry walls along the terraces, chapels and wayside shrines with faded frescoes at the bends of the mule paths.

The southern valleys are Occitan in name and in memory. Vinadio is Vinai and Castelmagno is Chastèlmanh, and the sanctuary of San Magno above Castelmagno, at 1,761 metres, is the patron of the valley . The cheese that carries the name of the village is made in the high pastures of the Grana valley from the milk of a few cows, and it is one of the mountain products that have been given a protected designation in the European Union, . The Maira valley has become the laboratory of a new mountain population, in which newcomers and returning families rebuild a life on the old terraces.

On the Stura di Demonte the trail passes Demonte and the Forte Albertino at Vinadio, a fortress of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and above the village the sanctuary of Sant’Anna di Vinadio stands at about 2,000 metres. Beyond the Colle della Maddalena the Gesso and Vermenagna valleys lead towards the Maritime Alps, where the Argentera massif carries more huts of the Club Alpino Italiano, and the route ends in the Ligurian Alps at Viozene in the Ormea area. From there the Mediterranean can be reached in about three days on foot, or the train at Ormea in a few hours.

What stays with walkers is not a monument but a way of moving through a country. The days are measured in hours of ascent and descent, and in the villages where the guesthouse is a room in a family house and the evening meal is polenta, cheese and whatever the garden gives. The Walser and Occitan names on the signs, the chestnut flour in the shops and the chapels at the crossings are the visible layer of a history that the paths themselves carry, and the advice for anyone going is the advice of the mountains: plan the stage, watch the weather, carry more water than seems necessary, and leave word of where the day is to end.

References

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