GTA Through the Italian Alps - A Walker's Guidebook

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Reviews
• Further Reading

The GTA Trek

Clocking in with approximately 633km (393 miles) distance, 44,000m in ascent (and the same in descent), a low of 295m and a high of 2804m above sea level, and crossing 62 passes, the Grande Traversata delle Alpi entails a full 47 days on the trail, taking 248hr 40min. Striking out a mere stone’s throw from the Italian and French Riviera on the Mediterranean coast, it embarks on a remarkable journey across one third of Italy’s alpine arc, the western sector. Mighty stone giants line the way, monumental landmarks that take turns supervising breathtaking backgrounds on what is probably Italy’s most rewarding long-distance walking route. Arduous mountain passes where the eye gazes over boundless horizons of rugged rock and snowscapes are encountered on a daily basis. Following on are emerald meadows spread with glorious wildflowers in peaceful valleys where age-old pastoral activities are still practised, part of a traditional way of life in far-flung hamlets. One of the many beauties of the GTA is that it drops into inhabited settlements on an almost daily basis, giving walkers a privileged look into alpine communities where ageing farmers still don cloth caps and cords, their womenfolk often clad in timeless black.

Pathways can be enjoyed in peace and quiet for days on end as the itinerary is little trodden – unless herds of chamois, comical marmot families and impressive birds of prey are taken into account. In between outstanding stages the occasional link stretch can be less exciting, but such days give time to meditate on past experiences without risking ‘overload’ and being overwhelmed by an excess of brilliant alpine scenery! Few parts of the Alps can guarantee such a memorable kaleidoscope of experiences for walkers.

Italy’s Western Alps

Have I discovered a district that exceeds all others in beauty? Or do the Alps become more beautiful to us at each succeeding visit? Or is it that after an absence of nearly two years I beheld them with the eyes of the exile who is restored again to his beloved home? Whatever be the reason, I am like a man who has found a treasure, and whose avarice cannot check his longing to declare it.

(R.L.G. Irving, 1911)

The western sweep of the Italian Alps traversed by the GTA embraces distinct mountainous groups, and walkers cannot fail to notice the changes in the landscape as the trek progresses. On the map the curvaceous reliefs resemble an outstretched hand, the spaces between the fingers representing the valleys branching off exponentially as they climb. Starting closest to the Mediterranean and topped by 2651m Marguareis are the Ligurian Alps or Alpi Ligure, cause of Irving’s wonder. Characterised by smooth pale mountains they consist mainly of limestone, a sedimentary rock deposited some 200 million years back in a warm tropical sea, but gradually shaped into karst terrain by the dissolving effect of rainwater. Of the extensive limestone cave systems over 500 have been recorded to date by speleologists, but exploration is ongoing; the most extensive has 13 entrances, is 40km long and 950m deep. Since 1978 a good 6700ha have been protected under the well-run Parco Naturale Alta Val Pesio e Tanaro.

As of the road pass Colle di Tenda on the border with France, the Ligurian Alps are followed by the Maritime Alps or Alpi Marittime, which feature stocky 3297m Argentera. D.W. Freshfield observed them at length from the Côte d’Azur: ‘Day by day, in the clear winter sunshine, I had seen from the hills round Cannes the snowy chain’, later noting that they gave access to ‘views... of surpassing beauty’. On the other hand the rugged core was described for its ‘crests that are all exceedingly precipitous and narrow, sharp as knives and jagged as saw blades’ by Austrian naturalist Fritz Mader (1895). These dramatic mountains of igneous-metamorphic origin assume shades of grey, orange, Prussian blue and purple, while intense patches of red (due to the presence of iron) can even interfere with a compass. Granite is predominant alongside gneiss, from intrusions of ancient lava. A handful of modest ice and snowfields survive, and glacial modelling is widespread both here and in the following groups. The notably abundant wildlife is monitored by the competent Parco Naturale delle Alpi Marittime, which traces its origins back to 1855 when land was donated to the Italian king for the purposes of a game reserve; the largest park in Piedmont now covers an impressive 28,000ha.

That chain is succeeded by the Cottian Alps, or Alpi Cozie, beginning in Valle Stura and boasting the spectacular isolated 3841m Monviso (Monte Viso), clearly visible from the city of Turin in northwest Italy. Bound for Cuneo by train D.W. Freshfield wrote (1880): ‘The rich vineyards and campanili of the plain form a shifting foreground, while against the sky towers, solitary and sublime, the noble pyramid of Monte Viso, fulfilling beyond all other Alpine peaks our childhood’s ideal of a mountain’. At its foot is the 465ha Riserva Naturale Speciale Pian del Re, encompassing the source of Italy’s most important river – the Po – then extending the entire course of the waterway. The Monviso is composed of relatively young metamorphic rock with a good percentage of so-called ‘greenstone’, while the southern reaches of the Cottians mean a predominance of limestone. Here lies the Gran Bosco di Salbertrand; 70% of this forestry reserve is cloaked in magnificent fir and larch woodland, and is home to a large deer population. The Cottian range purportedly took its name from Marcus Julius Cottius, a contemporary of Augustus and Roman ruler of the Susa valley, which marks their border with the neighbours.

According to legend the appellation for the Graian Alps, or Alpi Graie, commemorates the passage of mythical Greek hero Hercules (Ercole Graio) over the Piccolo San Bernardo pass, allegedly between labours. Extensive glaciers and nevées overlie metamorphic formations here, the result of volcanic material transformed during the raising of the Alpine chain in the Tertiary period 54–57 million years ago. U-shaped valleys and armchair cirques are widespread, as are curious ‘roches moutonnée’, polished stone humps emerging from the ground, so-named for their resemblance to sheep. The Graians take in the superb 4061m Gran Paradiso peak, which gave its name to Italy’s very first national park, the 70,000ha Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso (mostly in the Valle d’Aosta region). It dates back to 1922 when King Vittorio Emanuele III handed over this former hunting reserve, which boasts surprising concentrations of wildlife along with 450km of paved tracks.

Lastly, as of the Valle d’Aosta the GTA enters the realms of the Pennine Alps or Alpi Pennine, located on the edge of Switzerland. Known as the Central Alps, they are crowned by the magnificent glaciated 4634m Monte Rosa, Europe’s second summit after Mont Blanc. The range also includes the Matterhorn and the Parco Naturale Alta Valsesia; clocking in at 6500ha it calls itself the highest park in Europe.

Piedmont

All these mountain ranges are situated in the Italian region of Piedmont – Piemonte in Italian – which aptly means ‘foot of a mountain’. It assumed strategic importance in the Roman era, providing easy access to Gaul and the transalpine provinces. As a border region it has also played host to an intriguing range of ethnic and religious groups over the ages. The vast swathe from the Ligurian to the Cottian Alps is still home to 200,000 people claiming to belong to the curious Occitan cultural group. Originally hailing from central France and the Spanish Pyrenees, they boast a distinctive red/yellow flag and recently revived Franco-Provençal dialect, the language of the troubadours. Their thriving folk music and traditional dances star the ghironda or ‘wheel fiddle’ akin to a laptop hurdy-gurdy (a stringed instrument played by turning a handle).

On the other hand the Waldenses, a local Protestant group, have a terrible history of persecution. They are known in Italian as the Valdesi after their founder Valdo, a wealthy 12th-century merchant from Lyon who gave away all his worldly goods and turned to evangelism. Attracted by the simple values, many Piemontese joined his ranks. However, all followers were excommunicated by the Catholic Church and, despite the Reformation, were massacred in Italy’s Valle Pellice in 1655. Dubbed the ‘Piedmont Easters’ the episode drew indignation and solidarity from Protestant groups throughout Europe, prompting Cromwell to dispatch an ambassador to Turin to protest, and inspiring John Milton to compose ‘On the Late Massacher in Piemont’:

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter’d Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold.

During the so-called ‘Glorioso Rimpatrio’, ‘glorious return home’ from exile in Switzerland in 1689–90 – a fortnight-long march across treacherous alpine passes – a 370-strong group held out all winter long on a ridge above Balsiglia. Trapped in a treacherous circle by 4000 enemy troops equipped with cannons, the Waldenses were saved by thick providential fog. Only days later the Italian king allied his country with Protestant Austria and England and broke with Catholic France, making life somewhat easier for the Waldenses, estimated at 30,000 in Italy today.

With similar spelling (and easily confused on first sight only) are the Walser people, whose traditional communities are found in the belt around Monte Rosa. Their history is quite different as they reached northern Italy from the north in the 1100s, as colonisers of the alpine pasture valleys. According to conflicting and imaginative theories, they are the descendants of Gauls or Celts (if not Etruscans fleeing from persecution, or even refugees from Switzerland at the time of William Tell!). They brought with them a distinctive Germanic patois still spoken by a handful of people, and kept alive through three-yearly get-togethers involving Walsers from neighbouring alpine countries. The villages are characterised by attractive clusters of time-darkened timber houses ringed by balconies with hay racks and identified by their deep overhanging eaves, and a hole in the roof through which the spirits of the departed could exit. A museum-cum-model house can be visited at Alagna Valsesia.

As of late medieval times, Piedmont was the stronghold of the expanding Savoy dynasty, a prosperous and powerful regime that at a much later date (1861) provided modern Italy with its very first king, Vittorio Emanuele II.

Piedmont played a key role in the latter years of the World War II conflict. After 1943 – when the authoritarian regime in Italy capitulated and the armistice was signed with the Allies – military chaos broke out in Italy as troops were temporarily leaderless. Many took to the hills to form companies of partisans as the resistance movement grew. Due to its northerly location Piedmont was amongst the last places to be liberated (in 1945) by the Allied advance. Its mountains provided perfect hideouts and protected bases for operations designed to disrupt the Nazi occupiers and their local fascist partners. Air drops of essential material by the Allies helped the effort. In one example planes flew from bases in North Africa to the Pesio valley outside Cuneo, as part of the operation led by the UK Special Forces and known as ‘Mission Charterhouse’.

Little by little the post-war period in Piedmont witnessed population shifts from the uplands to the Po plain, drawn by jobs as industrial development got underway, peaking in the 1950–60s. Turin, for instance, meant the Fiat automobile factory, and Ivrea Olivetti office technology. Hand-in-hand with the growth came a dramatic increase in demand for power. The abundance of water on hand in the Alps made hydroelectricity a natural choice. Dams, gigantic conduits and hydroelectric plants dating back to the 1950–60 period – its heyday in Italy – are encountered across the Graians and the Maritime Alps.

The spread of industry notwithstanding, ancient farming and agricultural practices have survived. South-facing slopes were shaped into terraces for cereal and grape cultivation. There are ingenious examples of exploitation of the sun’s heat, with vines draped over trellising leaning on dark rock faces; this can still be seen in the Susa and Aosta valleys. Moreover, though the Piedmont Alps are dotted with ghost villages and abandoned hamlets, a surprising number of hardy shepherds and herders endure spartan conditions for months on end so their flocks can indulge in summer grazing on high. Milk from the sheep, cows and goats is skilfully transformed into high-quality dairy products. Where feasible, butter is packed into wicker panniers loaded onto mules or horses and accompanied valleywards on a weekly basis. Otherwise – as mains electricity is a rare commodity – there are ingenious age-old systems of refrigeration such as the crutin in the Gran Paradiso area, whereby a cooling stream is channelled through a low hut, ensuring a constantly low temperature. In the Ligurian-Maritime Alps are curious sella or trüna: built on a sloping hillside and partially underground, they boast a vaulted roof of turf, an efficient insulator. Cheeses are brought to slow maturation in ancient low-slung stone huts, often half-dug into the mountainside.

Visitors with an interest in rural architecture will be intrigued by the variety of buildings. Rudimentary shelters make the most of sloping land, natural rock overhangs and huge fallen boulders, natural anti-avalanche barriers. A balma is a simple type, a cave at best with a low protective wall of loose stones; the shepherds’ summertime residence or gias continues to be the most widespread. From the Latin iacere (to rest), it ranges from a lean-to overlaid with branches and corrugated sheeting to a more comfortable stone hut.

Substantial village settlements are generally composed of slender multi-storeyed dwellings sporting narrow jutting balconies, with ground-floor accommodation for chickens and cows. In southwestern Piedmont the roofing more often than not is rusty corrugated sheeting lashed down with branches and wire. The traditional system, sadly all but disappeared, employed straw thatching using locally grown cereals such as rye. Low cost (if rather high maintenance) the dried grass was, however, especially vulnerable when marauding invaders lit blazes. Few here had access to – or could afford – longer-lasting material such as ardesia slate stone, known as lose or piode, widespread in the valleys further north. In the districts with copious quarries, its use dates back to the 1400s. Skilled craftsmen are required to cut and lay the hefty slabs in artistic overlapping scales. Valle Bellino di Varaita, Valle d’Aosta and Valsesia are justifiably proud of their graceful constructions in local stone.