Forcella di Frasnedo, from Piazzo

Access

From Milan to Verceia along the state road . From here take the last right turn before the Campo Mezzola Tunnel and follow the tarmac road to its (temporary) end at Piazzo. Parking facilities are not plentiful.

Introduction

Round trip that, in the second part, follows paths recently re-signposted by the Regional Forestry Authority after years of neglect. The first section, on the other hand, follows a section of the - in Lombardy - famous Tracciolino: a completely flat route that spectacularly joins the Valle dei Ratti with the Val Codera in parallel with the water intakes for the hydroelectric reservoirs of the two mentioned valleys. Alone it is worth a trip.

Description

Parking the car as far as possible, take the signposted path to Frasnedo; walk steeply up the slope among centuries-old chestnut trees. In about half an hour, you come to a clearing with a chapel-bivouac belonging to the local ANA section, and about 10 minutes after leaving it behind, you arrive on the Tracciolino 900m path: walking between the narrow-gauge railway tracks, you take it to the left and with an evocative route (balconies over the valley, wild valleys, tunnels) you arrive at the vertical of the village of San Giorgio 748m. From here we must be careful because after a few hundred metres, around a bend, on the right, the 'Sentiero LIFE' begins, which we must take. It climbs very steeply in places, goes along a ledge equipped with a handrail cable, and goes alongside an abandoned alpine pasture; then, in view of the Forcella di Frasnedo (Frasnedo Saddle), it intensely increases the ascent: the arrival pasture saddle opens up the view of the Valle dei Ratti and the village of Frasnedo below. Before beginning the descent, the trail heads uphill to the right among the scree to a beautiful hanging wood with a view of the Lake Mezzola Nature Reserve. To the left among the woods and the last meadows, you reach Frasnedo, an ancient village now inhabited only during holiday periods. Having crossed it, we follow the old mule track downhill, which is paved in places, pass by the few houses of Càsten, and soon return to the Tracciolino, exactly where the uphill path was. Which we retrace downhill to the car park.