Trans Swiss Trail – Hiking on the Strada Alta

Well then, so today the first day in company, the trail is long but, if I remember correctly, of exquisite beauty.

Deep down in the valley, traffic roars on the Autobahn, while up on the Strada Alta there is calm. Magnificent view of the Leventina and Val Bedretto mountain ranges. Bright chapels shine in villages and meadows. Osco was once an important mule town.

The Leventina classic trail

So many great stages behind me. The river trips along the Doubs or the Aare and the Emme to its spring. Or the fantastic hikes along some of the most beautiful lakes in the world.

Unforgettable days full of light and sun and air.

But today a new highlight starts.

The Strada Alta, a classic, one of the most beautiful hiking trails our country has to offer. It leads from Airolo to Biasca, always high above the Leventina, a permament up and down, through forests and meadows, through villages and hamlets.

For three days we follow an old mule track that avoided the dangerous gorges at the valley.

The route climbs from Airolo to the highest point at 1400 meters, only to plunge abruptly down to the valley bottom after around 45 kilometers with a 700-meter descent.

The first sunrays

It would be presumptuous to say that we leave at the first rays of the sun. Of course, as usual, we're much too late at the start, but we know that by now. So, given our age, we take it very leisurely, crossing the elongated village and its associated hamlets until the path begins to climb. Everything's ok.

Airolo stays behind us, the path leads gently uphill, we can hardly feel it. We cross the Val Canaria (which brings back some painful memories from a hike long ago) and soon reach a first village high above the valley - Madrano.

Sometimes we cross sunlit meadows and slopes, sometimes forest and trees bending over the path. We dive into another world, a quiet, simple world, if it weren't for the roar and hum of the untamable traffic in the valley below. Nevertheless, one breathes automatically, the chest expands, the spirit, this insatiable creature, gets quiet.

The view back shows the valley just before Airolo, motorway and railway line, villages and hamlets and slopes and meadows and forests, right at the back is the Gotthard and the deep incisions that were cut into the mountain by the new Gotthard road. So many sins at a glance.

But anyway, we're looking ahead, leaving everything behind, our direction is south and nothing else. The sky may be full of clouds, but the sun's rays caress the green and yellow mottled slopes, we feel welcome.

Step by step, sometimes chattering, sometimes silent again, we walk upwards. The hiking sticks, clack, clack, set the pace. This sound will accompany us to Mendrisio. After some time we reach the highest point at a good 1400 meters.

On this first stage, the hiking trail leads along asphalt roads again and again, but what the heck, we'll take what comes. From tomorrow everything will be better (we hope). Still, there are great sections, under leafy trees, where the ground is soft and pleasant to walk on. That's the way it has to be.

Wooden houses and stone houses and everything else

A hike is also always (or mostly) a lesson in geography, history, politics and economics. However, this requires an open mind and pricked ears (and later subsequent research in the relevant information). Ah, this damned half-knowledge.

Who would have known that in the upper Leventina, the Uri style is the dominant architecture of the hillside settlements with the dark brown wooden houses, while further south they are dominated by stone houses. Or that the mountain forest is gradually being replaced by pines, birches and all kinds of bushes and soon the first chestnut groves appear.

Sometimes you just waddle along without thinking about the surroundings and their gifts. If only you were a little more careful.

A life lesson, it seems to me.

Villages with and without life

In fact, even in the tiniest of villages, which hardly deserve the attribute of a village, there is a church or at least a chapel. An appeal to the pious citizens, of course all Catholics in this devout canton, to kindly remember the honor of God.

However - the realization cannot be suppressed - all these villages seem to suffer from a great lack that is visible and noticeable. There is a lack of life, of people, of voices, of children's laughter. Maybe we caught the wrong moment. The children are at school, the adults are at work in the valley below. Perhaps - one would hope - life only awakens after work.

I remain skeptical.

And of course there are the converted houses, the former rustici that have been turned into holiday chalets, rarely inhabited, perhaps on weekends or holidays. On the one hand an opportunity to maintain a kind of substitute life, on the other hand the influence of a foreign world, a different culture, which is mainly characterized by money.

It reminds me of a novel that describes the opposite, a fictional Ticino village in the Blenio Valley - Tage mit Felice by Fabio Andino. Although the story of an old man takes place in the present, much points back to a bygone era.

But Andino describes a lively mountain village in Ticino. The freshly painted town hall, the bar where the alcohol flows, the school bus from Acquarossa, the farmer Sosto, the last one who has cows.

There is a shop, a pub, many old, partly dilapidated houses, and above all many residents. Just as one remembers one's own youth - full of weird characters, full of life, even if often struck by great poverty. But village life works, there is a strong community that shares life and death and the onset of the technical age as a matter of course.

Well, somehow, while I was reading it, I wondered if the story was not out of time, if much of it did correspond to the imagination of the writer, who created his own utopia with this novel. Our conclusions while hiking the Strada Alta are different.

But who knows, maybe there are still memories of the past in Blenio Valley.

Descent through the Bosco d'Öss

Traffic roars on the Autobahn far down in the valley, but up here there is silence save for the jubilant songs of invisible birds. They are our constant companions, because apart from us there is rarely anyone to see or meet. The high hiking season is over, people have dedicated themselves to work, school, other passions.

In summer, on the other hand, it's teeming with day trippers, from light to heavily laden hikers, some for a short trip, others like us for longer stages. We are happy about the relative solitude, the cars and tractors on the respective asphalt sections are sufficient.

Through the so-called Bosco d'Öss, high above the Piottino Gorge, we cross the border to the middle Leventina on a severe, stony descent (we'll find out later). An interesting name, as it refers to the special dialects spoken here. One can assume that the language changes again every few valleys, as we know it from our common homeland (where a narrow river between two villages means not only different expressions, but also different accents).

It's a constant up and down. Sometimes you think you can see the day's destination Osco on the opposite slope, but it turns out to be a chimera, sprung from our imagination, which is slowly becoming a bit tired.

In the meantime, many hours have passed, wonderful hours along (mostly) great paths with a view that should actually be charged for (which would be quite in line with the grocer mentality of the Swiss; however, one should not be too angry with them - there are neither mineral resources nor anything else in this small country that can be monetized, so one sticks to what is available, the great nature).

Osco - and an abandoned lodging

Finally we approach the picturesque village of Osco, an important place for mules in the Middle Ages, where the so-called mule ordinance from 1237 is the oldest document reporting on the north-south connection over the Gotthard.

Here too, we are not even surprised to see not a soul, a village once again far from busy life. We are accommodated in the more or less only establishment in the village, the Ostello pro Osco, a stately building where we are guaranteed to have enough space. Only, unfortunately, there is no one to be seen here either, the door is locked, not a sound to be heard.

At least we have a phone number, a contact is made, and shortly thereafter an elderly lady puffs up from the village, opening the gates to our temporary paradise. Our paradise turns out to be accommodation for a good twenty people, one sleeps in row beds, the washroom is reminiscent of the times in the army, but what the heck, we have arrived.

Dinner and breakfast are taken at the central square in the appropriate restaurant (the only one in the village), the lady who opened the house to us is also the restaurant owner. Outside there are long tables and benches ready for many guests, but next to a few other hikers or whatever these people are, the place is deserted.

The dinner, it must be said, is of the highest quality, a real Ticinese dish that cannot be found better in the most expensive restaurants. We say goodbye to our landlady with the promise to sleep in the sacred halls of our Ostello like the kings of France...

 

Matching song:   Express and Company—Out by the Trees

And here the trail continues... along the Strada Alta to Anzonico