Claro - Piz de Molinera – Roveredo: carrying the snowshoes for 8 hours on the backpack

Inspired by Ale84’s snowshoe and hike report to Piz de Molinera, I decided to go there too. There was a minor problem though, the cable car to Monti Savorù only runs twice a day in March on weekdays. For me this meant I had to start down in the valley and hike up more than 2000m of altitude (and of course back down again).

My big dilemma was whether I should take my snowshoes along or not. At first I thought “no I won’t need them and I don’t want to carry them up for >1000m in altitude”. Then I looked at Ale84’s pictures of their hike and I saw quite a bit of snow, so I wasn’t very convinced any more that it would be possible to get to the summit without snowshoes. The final “yes I’ll take them along” came after reading ironknee’s Ticino report from last weekend where they encountered way more snow than expected at even lower altitude.

So I attached my snowshoes, poles and gaiters to my backpack and started in  Claro, Sud, going up to Cassero, Cassinello and Carvi in the chestnut forest. The path is quite obvious even though it isn’t marked. From Carvi on it is always marked. In Parusciana, I walked on the first patches of snow. Great, I thought, snow at 1100 meters already – I’m glad I took my snowshoes along. After I got to Monti Savorù, I soon saw that there was no more snow on the southeast side and the ridge where the path went up to Capanna Brogoldone and wherever there was some snow it was hard due to the very cold Nordföhn, and therefore it was easy to walk on it without snowshoes.

At Capanna Brogoldone where I ate lunch, I started realizing that I brought my snowshoes for nothing but carrying on my backpack. I walked up the frozen snow to the summit more or less diretissima (the rocks at the top can be bypassed left or right, I went right, T4-). Even though the view was marvelous, the very cold and strong wind made me leave soon.

For my way down, I first followed the southeast ridge to P. 2039 (Cima de Martum)) and down to Alp de Martum. The direct way down from P. 2039 to the hut was not possible, so I chose the southwest flank (T4-). On my old 25K map from the 70-ties there is a path from Alp de Martum down to A. di Stabbiello, first in a clearing then in the forest. I tried to find this path for a while but couldn’t, neither a clearing nor the path. Since the grounds there were unclear I decided to walk down to Giova & Roveredo instead.

There was actually quite some snow on this eastern flank, but again it was hard enough and I still didn’t have to put on my snowshoes. Oh well, I guess it was a good workout and the hike itself was really nice with an excellent view!
SBB Claro, Sud] – Cassero – Cassinello – Cavri – Parusciana – Monti Savorù – Capanna Brogoldone – Piz de Molinera – P. 1977.3 – Alp de Martum – Prepiantò – Giova – Roveredo


PS: Grazie Ale84, Mauro78 and Andy81 per il tip!