Monte Resegone

Monte Resegone, the symbol of Lecco, once called Serrada, is 1,875 metres high and stands on the border between the provinces of Lecco and Bergamo.

Alessandro Manzoni described it at the start of The Betrothed for the many peaks in a row that make it look like a saw; the name comes from the Lombard resegun, big saw. It is made of Main Dolomite, and at sunset its peaks turn pink. The Lecco side is rugged and sheer, while the Bergamo side, towards the Valle Imagna and the Val Taleggio, falls in gentler slopes. The highest top is Punta Cermenati, with the iron cross unveiled in 1925 and an altar consecrated in 1981 by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini; beside it stands the Rifugio Luigi Azzoni, and the view reaches from the Brianza lakes to the Alps. Part of the mountain, 690 hectares, is a Regional Forest run by ERSAF, with centuries-old beeches, chamois, roe deer and the golden eagle; a twelve-kilometre loop runs past nineteenth-century lead mines and charcoal burners' floors. And Milan once had a “Resegone easement”, a rule against building too high so as not to block the view of the mountain.

1. 01Path 1 starts in Lecco, from the Versasio cable-car car park, and climbs the western side past the Rifugio Stoppani. It is graded for experienced hikers (EE): 1,265 metres of ascent, about three hours, long and tiring, with exposed stretches and easy rock near the top.
2. 02The climb from Morterone, on the east side, is the simplest and quickest: grade E, about 800 metres of ascent and two hours through woods and pastures, on steady but never steep gradients.
3. 03At the top, on Punta Cermenati, are the cross and the Rifugio Azzoni. Those who do not want to climb all the way take the cable car from Versasio to the Piani d'Erna, where the Sentiero Natura suits families.
4. 04For experienced hikers there are the equipped gullies, such as the Canalone Bobbio (path 10 from the Piani d'Erna, grade EEA, with a helmet advised for falling stones), and the historic via ferratas Gamma 1 and Gamma 2.

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