Day Hiking in Italy-Gran Paradiso-Valsavarenche

I went to Italian Alps in June 2017.

Hike in Gran Paradiso Area #1 Valsavarenche/Walk to Rifugio Chabod

9 Km out and back 1000 meter elevation gain

We started the day by going to a local coffee bar in the town. All customers are Italian and we were the only foreigners. Good sign. Cappuccino in Italy is always 1.3 euro at a coffee bar. Better taste with cheaper price. I realized how rip-off the coffee is in the Bay Area.

Ibex

The hike started by crossing the Savara river. The river in the valley has tremendous amount of water from snow. The water was greenish and pretty. The trailhead has two more cars in addition to ours. One of them was Suzuki. I was surprised by the fact Suzuki is popular in Italy. Near the trailhead, we saw one female ibex. I didn’t know the animal but Mr.N told me it was ibex. Once it was near the extinction but they came back. We also saw some marmots. They are cute. We passed the power line and a ranger’s house (probably), then started switchbacks. We saw one guy with chainsaw working to maintain the trail. Other than him, there was no hikers all the way to the top. Although he probably worked on the trail maintenance, there were still many fallen logs on the trail near the tree line. Then there was another rangers’ buildings on the way. It has quite nice view, so I got jealous of them. Above the tree line, the scenery became splendid. Near the rifugio, we found the trail buried with snow, but rifugio was visible, so we just went there by hiking off-trail.  

On the way to the top, the Gran Paradiso appeared. It is 4000 meter high mountain and the name of this national park. It was completely covered by snow and possible glaciers. It was very cool and beautiful. Besides it, we saw high mountain range. So gorgeous and the scenery was all ours. We took a nap at the place with great view of Gran Paradiso. The mountain sometimes got covered with clouds, sometimes cleared up. The rifugio was not yet open, but four workers were working on to open it soon. On the way down, we saw 2 hikers with climbing gear including ropes, 2 hikers with ropes and snowshoes, 5 hikers with a lot of gears. All Italians. They probably would stay at rifugio even if it is not open. They just needed to bring all gears. It was a great hike.

After the hike, we went to a nearby bigger trailhead called Pont. There were 20-30 ibex. They were all males with antlers. It seemed that males stay together as a group but female alone. Males don’t care human but females are more cautious and run away. Ibex are such a beautiful creature.

Then we went back to the cottage and ate spinach soup, pasta, and fruits with outside table with great view.