This morning, at around eleven, we bagged another local summit; Sasso Canale, weighing in at 2,411 metres. The walk we did is described here. It was a beautiful day and we drank in the stupendous views out over the Swiss alps and beyond. At our feet, the Chiavenna valley seemed like a drawing. The other way, we could see down to a miniature Como lake. There were, of course, photos at the summit but the illustration I have chosen for this post is an extraordinary dry stone wall, marked on maps as il muro del terminone, which runs straight up the mountain side for at least a kilometre, as straight as a die. Why so straight and why so long? I can find no explanatory references on the internet. Once again, I had that sense of many anonymous men achieving great, monumental things and leaving an enduring mark on the landscape they once graced.
Hi Martin, this is beautiful. I’ve been up the Monte Berlinghera, just to the east of (and a few hundred metres shorter than) the Canale, a few years ago, with my twin brother. Kim lives in Chiavenna for part of the year (and in Monza for the rest) and is an avid and ambitious climber of the peaks to the north of Lake Como: just last week it was the Pizzo Ferré (3100m), up the Splugen Pass. Apparently it was so clear that you could see from the Monte Rosa in the west to the Grossglockner in the east. He also paints, in watercolour, what he sees up there: the results can be seen on http://www.kimsommerschield.com (and he’s got a permanent exhibition in his own small gallery on the Piazza Pestalozzi in Chiavenna: go see!) Were you “just” on holiday there or do you have a more permanent connection to the place? Per
Hi, Per. More permanent. Chiavenna’s just up the road for us (in the winter we go to Madesimo for the skiing), so we’ll drop in on that gallery sooner or later. We’ve done Monte Berlinghera, by the way. (The start for Sasso Canale is the same.) All the best, Martin