Fraction Talosio, Ribordone – Ronco Canavese

Talosio 1225 m – Alpe Roc 1812 m – Colle del Crest 2040 m Cima Rosta 2173 m – Bocchetta di Rosta (Pian delle Masche) 1957 m – Ronco 948 m

A section that offers splendid panoramas and mostly runs through pleasant pastures. The hardest part is the end, along the road, from Masonaie to Ronco.

From Talosio, follow the carriage road that goes to the Sanctuary for about 500 metres: near the first bend you leave it and take the mule track on the right that also leads to the Sanctuary. It descends slightly to the Ribordone stream, crosses it on an old bridge to climb up the opposite side, passes near some abandoned huts, crosses a small stream and arrives near the Sanctuary of Prascondů 1321 m, located in a fairly hidden location, as the name says; 0.25 hours. (And this is one of the best known and most popular sanctuaries in the Canavese area, built in 1620, destroyed by an avalanche and rebuilt in a safer place in the eighteenth century. Dedicated to the Madonna of Loreto, the building also includes rooms for sheltering pilgrims, arranged in a quadrangular shape around a large square. The church preserves a valuable seventeenth-century wooden coma. If you want to reach the Sanctuary, cross the bridge and head to the nearby church square.)

The GTA route does not cross the bridge, but follows the mule track that passes just downstream of the original chapel (trail sign) and goes up the valley leaving the Sanctuary on the left. Towards the north-west emerges the triangular cusp of Monte Colombo 2848 m. A little further up the mule track has been removed in several places by a recent flood, and you are forced to cross the stream several times, passing now on one bank and now on the other; finally you deviate sharply to the left halfway up the mountain pastures, pass behind the Alpe Balmot huts and reach near Alpe Barlan 1474 m, the ridge which culminates at the top with a characteristic rocky castle 1795 m, located in the middle of the Roc valley which takes its name from it. You go up through pastures (path EPT 565), then onto a first salient of the ridge covered with birch trees, and then go around the aforementioned rocky castle on the left reaching Alpe Roc 1812 m (Rocco sull’IGM); 1.30 hours.

(From this point it branches off on the right marked with orange paint, a shortcut which in 30 minutes directly reaches Bocchetta di Rosta or Pian delle Masche. It may be useful to know its existence, but it is advisable to follow the main GTA itinerary, longer but safer and much more panoramic. To take this shortcut you pass through the courtyard of Alpe Roc between the stable and the cheese shed and follow the path that goes up with an almost always moderate slope, sometimes cutting across grassy slopes halfway up very inclined, here and there with alder vegetation. It is advisable (the recommendation is even more valid for those coming from Ronco and therefore proceeding downhill) to be careful not to slip on the grass if it is damp.

From Alpe Roc the main route continues uphill in the same direction followed until now; through pastures it climbs up the left orographic side of the valley, crosses the bottom at an altitude of 1907 m, climbs up again with hairpin bends on the opposite side and reaches Colle Crest 2040 m. Instead of descending on the opposite side (the old EPT 601 path is currently impassable in the lower part), from the hill follow a track to the right (south-east) that climbs the scree ridge to the pre-summit 2157 and then to Cima Rosta 2173 m ; 1.00 hour, wide panorama of the mountains of Val Soana and Monte Rosa, as well as those that can be seen up to the hill. From the top you descend for a few meters (south) to a collar and take, leaving the crest of debris on the left, a sort of grassy valley that leads. directly to Bocchetta di Rosta 1957 m, depression between Cima Rosta and Cima Loit, not named on the IGM and IGC maps, which connects the Ribordone valley with Val Soana.

For those coming in the opposite direction, the shortcut to Alpe Roc described previously starts from this point.

From the Bocchetta, with a few steps downhill, you enter the small but suggestive plateau known as Pian delle Masche.

(Pian delle Masche is a very famous place linked to traditions and legends which indicate it as a meeting place for witches (masche) and therefore the site of extraordinary events handed down by popular legends. In the past the mountain people met here on 27 August to party. A legend cited by Pietro Wayra in the 1874 volume The Witches of Canavese narrates: Some hunters, having once climbed to that floor, came across seven chamois of extraordinary beauty; one after the other they lead to the watch out for their rifles, but they repeatedly refuse to fire on the chamois, who impassively didn’t even bother to move. Who could those chamois be anything other than so many sorcerers)

From Pian delle Masche, extraordinarily flowery at the beginning of summer, once you reach the eastern edge you pass through the carving of an old slate quarry and descend into the large Guaria valley: the path, zigzagging through open pastures, first reaches the ‘Alpe Le Goie 1864 m, then Alpe Ciavanis 1727 m, both clearly visible from above. Just below Alpe Ciavanis the path briefly climbs halfway up the slope (altitude 1650, where the first larches and birches appear) and then starts to descend again on increasingly wooded terrain, on the left side of the valley. You thus reach the valley floor and after a short journey along the stream you turn left across meadows up to the houses of Masonaie 1201 m; 2.00 hours. From Masonaie to Ronco the GTA can only follow the new asphalt road which, initially narrow along the tree-lined meadows of the Costa and Li Beu hamlets, and then wider from the Grangia hamlet onwards, descends into the woods cut on a steep rocky slope from which every the view dominates the valley floor. After about 3 km you reach the hamlet of Bosco 900 m, just beyond which, at the confluence of the Forzo valley with the main valley, you enter the provincial road which goes up again for 1 km to Ronco: 1.20 hours entering Ronco on the main road just before the car park on the right take the road on the left and you will arrive at the Hotel Locanda della Luna and Hostel Lo Bec stopover places.

Ronco Canavese is the main center of Val Soana, and is a holiday resort frequented above all by numerous emigrants, mainly from France, who return there for holidays. AND

the ancient parish church of San Giusto, in the center of the town, is interesting. There are around thirty villages in the municipality, many uninhabited, scattered both on the valley floor and in the lateral valleys of Guaria, Forzo, Servino and Canaussa, almost all of those in the first valley are in the final stretch of this stage, many others are crossed in the next stage from Ronco in Campiglia Soana.