Vicima Pass, from Campo

Access

From Milan to Morbegno along state roads 36 and 38; continue until just after the viaduct over the Tartano stream, where you turn right towards Tàrtano. The provincial road climbs up the slope of the Crap dul Mesdè with numerous hairpin bends and reaches the hamlet of Campo; continue carefully for a few hundred metres and, after a small lay-by on the right, turn left into the barely visible Via Cosaggio. You will soon reach a small car park near a small church.

Introduction

Beautiful excursion, very scenic and virtually unknown to non-locals. Despite the recent marking out of a forest track, the environment remains intact and wild. At the pass, the view encompasses the entire Valtellina alpine arc.

Description

From the little church, we climb a steep, neglected path that soon leads to the top of the contrada meadows; a few steep hairpin bends through dense woodland allow us to reach a wide mule track coming from the left (Contrada Ronco - "Cuntrada Ruuch"). Follow it uphill through the increasingly brighter and tidier woodland; shortly after the ruins of a small chapel ("cincet"), the initial uphill stretch comes to an end and you turn into the Val Vicima furrow: continue for a long time on a semi-plan until you come to the Vicima huts 1505 m (a few crossroads marked with posts and arrows of the Comunità Montana). A short stretch of damp woodland, with the ruins of an anonymous abandoned hamlet, leads to the first curves of the new forest track (which begins a few metres downstream at a small helicopter unloading site). The trail follows this - admittedly discreet - track for a long time, alternating between pastureland plateaus with huts and casere huts and precipitous slopes that allow for a rise in altitude; the track ends at Foppe ("Baita dil Fopi") 2050 m. From here, the trail continues along the valley floor among stones, rhododendrons and gneisses (or avalanche residues, depending on the season) in the direction of the visible pass; a final climb on an unstable path leads to the large cairn with a cross at Passo Vicima 2234 m ("L'om de Vicima"). Already from here the panorama is grandiose, but it is worthwhile to descend for a few metres on the Valmadre side, to a rocky pulpit: at our feet stretches the Alpe Bernasca basin with its lake and the recent Rifugio 2093 m. The panorama encompasses all of the Rhaetian mountains from Disgrazia to the easternmost offshoots of the Bernina group.
Returning along the outward route.