Route: Gotthardhospiz - dam Lago Lucendro - Lago d'Orsino - Laghi d'Orsirora - Gatscholalücke - Laghi di Valletta - Lago Lucendro - Gotthardhospiz
As an introduction, this walk is set in Switzerland, at the border between the Italian and German speaking regions by the infamous Gotthardpass (Italian:Passo del San Gottardo). The pass has been a major and strategic link between Italy and Switzerland since the middle ages, highly fortified and occupied during the wars. It was further developed during the twentieth century with sealed highways and currently the worlds longest alpine tunnels, the region now displays a unique and very Swiss feel with its surreal mix of colossal concrete dams and a web of power lines calmly and comfortably imbedded in one of the most picturesque and traditionally beauty blessed mountainscapes in the Alps.
Atop the pass is the Ospizio San Gottardo, a particularly serene work of architecture by Basel based practice Miller & Maranta, who’s bluntly subtle renovation of an ancient Alpine Hospice is an essential night spent with views all the way to Italy.
From here the 4 or so hour walk scrambles amongst military pill boxes disguised as boulders and multiple generations of highways that weave through a misty moss covered landscape that shrugs indifferently at these brief scars of civilisation. As you head towards the towering wall of the dam of Lago di Lucendro the walk begins steeply up a scramble of tussock passed abandoned hydro buildings and spillways. From here the walking is straight forward, just follow the painted rocks until you have passed 5 increasingly beautiful lakes. Towards the top is a necessary side walk to the ‘Passo d’Orsirora / Gatscholalücke 2528m), the views from here are west towards the French speaking valleys and the neighbouring ‘Furkapass’ where James Bond raced his Aston in ‘Goldfinger’.
Take your swimmers for the lakes.
For the experienced the pass can completed on cross country ski's during thewinter.
13.22km
by Nicholas Ashby
2014
