Cima di Screvia, Monte Bar, Caval Drossa and Motto della Croce – a hike from Isone to Tesserete

When I ended up in Isone on my last snow shoe hike in this area, the mountain called Cima di Screvia caught my attention. Even though it is less than 1500 meters high, it dominates the whole Val d’Isone and looks rather impressive if you look at it from the valley. So back home I wanted to find some information on how to get up there. Since the internet didn’t reveal a lot of information about this peak, I went and bought Giuseppe Brenna’s “SAC Clubführer Tessiner Voralpen 5” – a book I wanted to buy for a long time anyway.

Brenna describes two ways to get up to Cima di Screvia, an easy one (EB) from south (Alpe Crocc) and a harder one (BG) Alpe di Screvia in the NW flank. My problem was that I wanted to start in Isone and the southern access would have meant a very long, seemingly unnecessary detour. So should I try the BG route, which Brenna describes as: “Die Route ist nur für Bergwanderer mit guten Kartenkenntnissen und mit Spürsinn geeignet”? Well, this might not be the smart choice in the winter with snow shoes, even though I consider myself a “Bergwanderer mit guten Kartenkenntnissen und Spürsinn”. So instead I carefully checked the map and decided to try my own route up to Cima di Screvia via the SW ridge. It turned out to be straight forward and rather easy (T3+).

After meeting chaeppi in the train to the Ticino, exchanging our hike plans for the day, discussing lots and lots of other mountains and talking about hikr, we said bye to each other in Bellinzona, because I had to go shopping and he wanted to catch the next train to Rivera-Bironico. Half an hour later I did so too and continued with the bus to  Isone, Paese. There I first walked down to the bridge over the Isone river and then along the marked route to Muricce. Here I continued along the marked route to Monte Bar for a short while, right before the little bridge crossing the creek there. Instead of following the path I went up in the forest to the left and followed the not very distinct ridge to an altitude of a little more than 1100m. There I then walked straight up in the forest of Pianca Sceresa towards Cima di Screvia.

At around 1300m I had to put on my snow shoes. Shortly after I got out of the forest and after bypassing some rocks on the south side (right), I went up to the now distinct ridge and followed it all the way up to Cima di Screvia. The steepness for this route is rather comfortable, always around 30º only for very short stretches a little more and the orientation is not very difficult either.

The view down to Isone and the valley from the summit is breath taking, even though the peak itself, when standing on it looks rather tame and is just a little bump in the north ridge of Monte Bar. The wind was now blowing very hard and I didn’t stay very long, but continued to Monte Bar. Since on the ridge, the snow was blown away or was very hard pressed, I took my snow shoes off again and attached them to my backpack (where they stayed for the rest of the day).

The hard wind sometimes almost threw me onto the ground, but also nicely pushed me up the hill. So I was on top of Monte Bar in no time (I strictly followed the NW-ridge which doesn’t pose any real difficulties). There I made a short break, but the uncomfortable North Foehn, made me leave again. I then walked along the west ridge of Monte Bar to Caval Drossa and from there down to Motto della Croce. The view to the "Luganese" on the way down is very nice, especially with the clear view and the reflecting sun in the Lago di Lugano.

At Monti di Roveredo, I finally found a nice bench on the south side of a hut which was more or less protected from the wind and invited for a longer break. It was so nice, warm and felt a lot like spring, that I fell asleep for a while… From here I then walked down to Tesserete via Montascio – Burghera - Scampo and Almatro.
   

 Isone, Paese – Muricce – Pianca Sceresa – Cima di Screvia – Monte Bar – Caval Drossa – Motto della Croce – Monti di Roveredo – Montascio – Burghera - Scampo – Almatro –  Tesserete, stazione