The Alpe Rossa loop

The loop climbs through pine, chestnut and beech woods to the pastures and hay meadows on the mountains of Colico.

Bedolesso, the Alpetto and the Alpe Rossa were once large meadows kept for hay; since the high pastures were abandoned, the forest has partly taken them back. At the Alpe Rossa, beside the hut built by the Comune of Colico, stands a beech listed among the monumental trees of the province of Lecco.

1. 01Twelve kilometres in a loop, five hours, between 288 and 1155 metres. It is a difficult route, for March to November.
2. 02Start behind the church at Villatico: right into Via Asilo, then right again into Via San Rocco to a car park, and from the weir on the Perlino stream the path enters the wood. After about two kilometres, in a clearing, a sign points left to Bedolesso, at 798 metres.
3. 03From Bedolesso the climb is quick to the huts of the Alpetto, at 1155 metres, the highest point; then the track runs on a gentle slope across several streams to the Alpe Rossa, at 1122 metres, and after about six hundred metres to the clearing with the huts of Montoc, at 940.
4. 04The descent is steep through the beech wood down to Monte Croci, at 535 metres, then along wider and paved roads to the Acqua la Fevra and back to Villatico, by Vicolo Mulino to the square.
5. 05Villatico is walkable from Colico station, on the Lecco–Sondrio–Tirano line.

WhereColico