Hidden treasure – Monte Ferraro / Ticino

One of easy loops in the areas without the crowds. Well, you can make it easy, but believe me, there is an option to spice it up. I did the loop around the mountain with my parents and I can only say that it was very peaceful, with plenty of chestnut trees especially close to Arosio, the village where we started. Therefore, I marked this destination as the place to go collecting chestnuts in autumn. However, I missed the autumn and returned with my hiking buddy Susan at the end of winter. The same hike with Susan and her dog was not the same. Obviously.

As mentioned before, we started in Arosio. It’s a cute village at the end of endless serpentines up from Gravesano. If you are a roadbiker or biker, you would love it. It’s like a little version of mountain passes zig-zag roads. Anyhow, we jumped out of the car and walked through the village following yellow signs. We walked a bit on the concrete road when we got to the first sign, where you could choose either right or left and with both directions, you reach the same destination.

For some reason, I always go left, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. It was nice trail, moderate incline, here and there a bit steeper parts but not for long. We were chatting all the way, keeping an eye on the marks not to miss the turn right in order to get to the peak. Beautiful day, with slippery patches of snow in some places. As soon as we reached the top, we got overwhelmed by 360 degrees view.

Why this peak is so underrated? You can see full ridge of Monte Lema – Tamaro, Lugano Lake with the two boobs from both sides (San Salvatore and Monte Bre), whole ridge from Monte Boglia to Gazzirola, Monte Bar. Lovely.

Normally, we should have gone back to the yellow sign crossing we passed as the last and turn right back to Arosio to close the loop. However, we didn’t want to go the same way back and we decided to find the trail, which was kind of shown on the map (with some parts interrupted) but not really marked on the trail itself.

Lesson #1: Even when you have a map and you study it, don’t assume that the trail is there in real life if just one centimeter is interrupted on the map. No, it’s not. On the top of it, we got to the large area with remaining snow from the winter. Yes, not only that it was difficult to track the trail, which was not properly used, but we lost it completely in the snow. Actually, we did not lose it, we misplaced it…

Naturally, we agreed to go direction, where the official trail should have been. This decision seemed to work well on the top of the flat part, but it did not when it started to be steeper. The grass was still brownish and wet from melting snow. It created this beautiful natural slide, which we did not appreciated but we could not blame anybody else just our brilliant idea. Sliding down, I suddenly hit the piece of wood and it ripped my toe cap. Lesson #2: If you go hiking and you have tendency to walk off the trails, invest in good hiking boots. Have to say, that the toe cap is really giving additional protection. If it wasn’t there, I would probably have the sixth finger on my left foot made out of the wood…

We continued sliding down. Unfortunately, we chose wrong direction and got on the top of the rocks. We were walking sideways to find the end of it. Not funny at all. Our ankles were thanking us for weird stretching exercise. And yeah, finally, dirty and with thorn shoe we got back to the marked trail.

How to get there & How long it takes:

If you want to push high meters, then feel free to start from Bedano or Gravesano (you can do as much as 1100m elevation), otherwise, I recommend starting in Arosio and aim for 500m of elevation. It’s moderate hike, suitable also for snowshoeing if there is enough snow in the winter.

Loop from Arosio takes about 3.5 – 4 hours. With sunny weather, you might be tempted to stay a bit longer on the top, get yourself into the lizard position and sunbath. For the Yoga enthusiasts, I would recommend to get there early morning and enjoy the session with 360 degrees view.

Location: Tessin

Address: Arosio

Car: Parking at church Chiesa San Michele in Arosio or at local school during the weekend

Public Transport: Bus from Lamone Cadempino to Arosio

Trail: 10.8km (5.4km up / 5.4km down)

Elevation: 660m

Highest Point: 1493 m above sea level

Difficulty: Easy

Time: 3hrs 40 mins (2hrs 15mins up / 1hr 25 mins down)

Condition of the trail: Narrow dirt path / short bit on road

Best to visit: All year round

Services: Bring enough snacks and water and have a picnic on the top