The Beautiful Calanca and Mesolcina Valleys

Saturday November 6, 2021 -- So the hiking season is not quite over, as we thought! We can still find nice places to hike and were out and about on the weekend. Only it was quite cold, and we also knew that we had to keep our altitude at under 1200m because of the snow. So we took a risk going up to exactly 1200m on a hike in the Calanca Valley, which we had been eyeing for a while now.

The Calanca Valley is a beautiful remote and wild valley just East of the Ticino Canton border, so although it is located in Canton Graubünden, it has all the culture of Italian Switzerland. The front part of the valley is narrow and steep with only just one real village and a couple of mountain hamlets higher up, which are the ones we wanted to discover before heading out of the valley and down to San Vittore in the Mesolcino Valley. Because we ascended on the West side, we lost the morning sunshine quicker than expected, and did run into some snow on the trail, but nothing that we couldn't navigate.

Once we crossed into the Mesolcino Valley onto the wonderful sunny hillside village called Giova, with its alien-looking, modern, 1988-built church called "Chiesa Madonna di Fatima", we had lots of sunshine for our late picnic lunch, and lots more sunshine for the long descent through the forest, and for our inspection of the magnificent tower ruins in San Vittore, which we unfortunately could not access.

Most of all, the view of the snow-covered peaks of both the Calanca and Mesolcino Valleys were the main highlight....

What a lovely set of colours as we head with the bus into the Calanca Valley!

That snowy patch up on the hill is Monti di San Carlo, the highest point we hiked up to, about 500m above the valley bottom. The snow-covered peaks form the border of Canton Graubünden (this side) and Ticino (the other side). 

First we walked around Lake Buseno (a dammed reservoir lake) to the village of Buseno, before heading up the hill on the left

Zoomed view of the village of Buseno

Walking along Lake Buseno as we ascend toward the village with the same name

From Buseno a look South to the cluster of buildings called Molina, where we had gotten off the bus (We were the only ones who got off there. The other six passengers went further up the valley!) 

A short walk around Buseno before climbing up the hill behind the village

It's always fun to see the palm trees here!

From the bus stop along the road into the Calanca Valley, we walked around the lake to Buseno, then 500 meters uphill to Monti di San Carlo (where we got into some snow on the trails), and from there walked to Giova and down to San Vittore in the Mesolcina Valley. 

Heading uphill through the forest, we passed a little chapel called San Antonio, about 150m altitude higher than the village of Buseno

Most of the first hour or so was straight uphill on forested trails

We always enjoy bridges! Leaning on this railing would not be a good idea. 

The first clearing with a view South out of the Calanca Valley to the fantastic mountains of the Mesolcino Valley. (There is a paved road all the way to Monti di San Carlo)

Above us are some old stables. Our trail continued above those buildings, and that's where we first ran into snow. 

This pair showed up out of nowhere, and always it's Urs who is most interesting to them!

From above the little stables, we can see all the way down to the road at the bottom of the Calanca Valley. That's how far we've climbed to this point!

So here we've reached the collection of houses called Monti di San Carlo, which was the maximum elevation we had planned to attain (500m higher than the lake). We were correct to guess that there was snow above 1200m.
 (Next stop: Giova, and then down to San Vittore, another almost three hours from here, which already took an hour and 15 minutes from Buseno!)

Monti di San Carlo in the Calanca Valley

Monti di San Carlo high above the beautiful and remote Calanca Valley!

Panorama view into the Calanca Valley on the left, and the Mesolcino Valley on the right

A closer look at the entrance of the Calanca Valley, and the Mesolcino Valley perpendicular to this valley. Those mountains are difficult for us to access, because any trail into the side valleys requires at least 1000m ascent!

We ran into lots of goats on this mountainside! They had full run of the hills, i.e. there were no fences anywhere that we could see!

All kinds of different goats

Usually it's cows blocking the trail, this time it was the goats. Even a Valais black-necked goat! That one looked out of place here.

A second cluster of houses we passed through, this one called Mazzucan. Lots of snow here. 

All the chapels we passed on our hike (there were five) as well as the main church in Buseno were all locked, which was a bit disappointing, as I love to look inside the chapels for interesting artwork.

On the left are the homes in Mazzucan, and in the back is up the Calanca Valley

Continuing southward, we walked for about 30 minutes in the shade of this side of the mountain, but could admire the villages of Castaneda (lower) and Santa Maria (higher) in the sunshine on the opposite side of the Calanca Valley

And finally we emerged into the sunshine in the Mesolcino Valley! This sunny clearing high above the valley bottom (which is in shade for several months in winter) is called Giova

Panorama view of Giova and the Mesolcino Valley. We sat on a stone wall to eat our picnic lunch with this view. 

A herd of sheep grazing in Giova. They have a large pasture! We also saw no fences here. Those sheep are FREE!

Zoomed view of Santa Maria in Calanca. We did a hike on that side of the valley almost exactly a year ago. Those photos can be viewed HERE

As we reached the herd of sheep, they took off running down the hill! No idea where they went...

This unusual structure is a chapel, also locked. But there is a walkway around the center cone, so we walked around that. The church is called "Chiesa Madonna di Fatima" and was built by two local architects in 1988. It looked very out of place up here! An article in German can be found HERE

A look down onto the Magadino Plain (Bellinzona/Giubiasco) and Monte Tamaro. This is the entrance to the Mesolcino Valley. 

There is even a hotel (Osteria) and restaurant up here, although it didn't look like it was currently open for business

From Giova we descended through the sunny forest for 1 hour and 15 minutes (almost 700m descent) to San Vittore in the Mesolcino Valley

This old tower in San Vittore is a prominent landmark which we have seen several times when we ride the bus through here, and I really wanted to go up to see it, in the hopes that you could climb to the top (you can not). 

The "Torre di Pala" was erected toward the end of the 13th Century. The entrance is a door on the valley side, but up high above a deep cleft. Who knows how they got in? In any case, there is currently no public access, which was disappointing. 

A view of San Vittore in the Mesolcino Valley, from the old tower ruins

Heading back through San Vittore to the bus stop

Another chapel which was closed! This one looked like it really would have had an interesting interior....

This was a long hike, but the kind we love to do, so not at all tiring. Over four hours, and with a total ascent of 650m (500m straight uphill, so that goes fast!). Perfect timing too. We started at 10:45 with lots of sunshine, and ended at 16:15, just as the sun was going down. 

Back in Bellinzona at the train station, waiting for our train North, we admire the final rays of sunshine on the beautiful peak called Pizzo di Claro (we walked over that ridge this side of the peak this summer, those photos are HERE). On the other side of the range is the Calanca Valley. Below the peak, all by itself above the Leventina Valley, is the Claro Monastery. 

The mint green trail between Buseno and San Vittore is the hike we did this day. The other mint green trail was the two-day hike from July this year, and the other trails are different ones from other years...

And here a final gruesome tidbit: THE NEXT DAY, on the train to our next destination, this creature was crawling in my hair! Not being able to find anything similar on the Internet, I reached out to an entomologist who informed me that this is probably a "Deer Ked" or "Deer Fly" (Hirschlausfliege), a type of louse/parasite which seeks out deer, moose and elk, and sheds its wings when it has found its host. So most likely I picked it up in the forest on this hike (there are deer here) and brought it home in my clothes!  As if the ticks weren't bad enough, now we have to watch out for this, as this one may also possibly be a carrier of the bacteria which causes Lyme Disease! (and apparently they are just as difficult to kill as the ticks...)