Mount Trubbio

Access

Follow the road to its end at Gravellona Toce and continue on the motorway past Domodossola to exit at the next junction for Valle Vigezzo. Drive up the valley and, just after passing the municipality of Santa Maria, follow the signs for Craveggia on the left and, before reaching the hamlet of Vocogno, turn right and park your car in the small open spaces around the rest home or just beyond it.

Introduction

Craveggia is the architectural pearl of the valley and the centre of Craveggia is a veritable open-air museum with stately homes, decorations and frescoes constituting its peculiarity: the famous treasure preserved in the church, which includes pyxes, crosses, sacred vestments, Louis XIV's funeral mantle and Marie Antoinette's wedding mantle, is testimony to this. The excursion, which is also beautiful and rewarding, with its route allows us to cross the beautiful and panoramic alpine pastures of Craveggia and the numerous huts scattered along the route, but it is best to do it when the ski slope, at the end, is still closed in order to fully enjoy the candour and silence typical of winter in the mountains.

Description

At the posts at the start of the itinerary, follow the signpost for Colma di Craveggia and climb up the small road, which is asphalted at first, and winds its way through the woods. Continuing the ascent, you come to a fork in the road, at which you keep to the left, pass a small chapel and, not wishing to continue along the track, climb up along the path, when visible, which, however, intuitively cuts through the numerous hairpin bends and allows you to reach the panoramic Alpe Fontana (1160 m) in less time. We cross it to temporarily leave the road and, staying a little to the right of the huts, ascend without an obligatory route northwards across the sunny, snow-covered slopes: in fact, the route is completely exposed to the south and passes by huts and small alpine pastures that, as we ascend, become one more panoramic than the other. As the route rises, alternating gentle slopes with short, steeper stretches and passing by the edge of the wood, which becomes increasingly sparse, it reaches the farm track, which is followed for a few hairpin bends to arrive just above the huts of the Colma di Craveggia (1635 m) to reach a high, evident wooden crucifix near which there are signposts. From this point, our destination is clearly visible in front of us, which we approach by passing just above a series of small huts and, deviating to the left to skirt a promontory slightly uphill in the woods, we arrive in the upper part of the valley. From this point, just above the alpine huts of Alp Pidella, it is not advisable to ascend the point to our left to make the ridge (because we would then have to descend to a subsequent col) but to reach, crossing uphill into the wood, the lowest point below the col and from here, climbing with difficulty up a short but very steep gully, to reach it. Now in front of us we have the ridge, which is also steep, and which we climb up again without an obligatory route, passing under the chairlift and reaching the obvious summit where there is a beautiful little chapel. The point is very panoramic over the peaks of the Antigorio and Vigezzo Valleys: the Ziccher, Gridone the Pioda di Crana and the Scheggia. Further to the west, the panorama allows us to see the Himalayan east face of Monte Rosa. The descent can be carried out along the ascent route or, alternatively, you can descend directly from the arrival point of the chair lift to the track of the road and from this to the col and gully. Then it is worth turning slightly to the left to pass by the Colma, where there is the well-kept San Rocco oratory, and then again down through the snow-covered meadows and the beautiful mountain huts until you cross the main road again.