Marta's Monterosa Blog

I am passionate about the Alps. They are my heart's home and the place where I would like to spend the last day of my life. I have been a tourist in the village of Champoluc in the Italian Monterosa for all my life and worked as a tourist operator in this area since more than 15 years.

I believe in respect for the special environment of this place that you can find only here. We all gain by enjoying its beauty, while trying to make a minimum impact at the same time. Leave it for our children in the future!

I believe in respect for people who live here with their traditions and culture, language, and work, their genuine products and delicious wines. They open their homes for us, tourists and meet us as their guests, if we are able to open our hearts for them. I have a friend who is a hotel owner and he says that when stressed people from the city come to his place, he tells them to sit down and take a drink before they even begin to worry if they have a room. Perhaps, we can bring a little of their kindness and calmness with us on our way back to the city.

My philosophy is to give back a little of what the mountains and the people from this place have given to me and to my family through my work, to communicate my philosophy and my passion to those who follow me on the blog, and in my trips as a tour operator.

If you would like to visit Champoluc, Gressoney, Alagna or other villages in the Aosta Valley, trek or ski in the Monterosa, discover Sardinia or other places we offer, contact us.

The magic of snowshoes - by Nastassja Capetillo

Posted: Mar 24, 2014
Categories: Blog
Comments: 0

When you’ve got just one week in the resort with some of the best skiing in the world you might not think about alternative activities. You might only have one ski-vacation planned for the whole year so it's understandable to make the most out of it. But are you sure you are not missing out on anything by staying on the slopes? We decided to give snowshoes a chance. And it was definitely worthwhile!  

Equipment is everything

In order to be able to hike in the mountains during winter-time, you can either randonnee or walk with snowshoes (or stayan the paved roads of course). In the village of Champoluc you can rent snowshoes at a few of the various ski-rentals. We choose one right next to the ski-lift station and got excellent help and great quality equipment.

Snowshoes look and feel a bit like having tennisrackets attached to your feet, but once you’ve tried walking with them on snow you immediately understand its charm. Compared to trying to hike on snow with normal boots it is almost like having a supernatural power, or know the magic for how to become weightless. 

Other than the snowshoes it is comfortable to have poles, good boots (to attach the snowshoes on), and appropriate hiking clothes. 

The snowshoes are easy to use and work a little as bindings on tour-skis. You have your heel detached while walking on slopes and can choose to attach your back-end boot when needed. 

Snowshoes

Exciting and varied environment

After a coffee at one of the only two bars in the last village in the Ayas Valley: St. Jaques (1686m), we were ready to hit our trek. There are special snowshoe-trails but we decided to follow a regular hiking-trail, from the church in the middle of the village all the way to the Blue Lake. 

The trail was a winding upslope until we reached Pian di Verra where a fairly large plateau gave us some time to walk horizontal for a while and rest a bit before the last uphill. There was plenty of snow but since the past weeks had been warm the snow sometimes dropped a bit under our feet. On the steepest parts it was crucial to walk with small steps in order to distribute our weight evenly.

beautiful trekking

Lago Blu - 2211 metres

After a couple of hours we reached our goal – the blue lake right under the 3000 metre-mountain ridges and impressive glaciers. This time of year the lake was covered in ice, but its bright blue color shined through the ice in the corners.

It was just us, the mountains and a probably some animals like well camouflaged mountain-goats or marmots who surely sat and looked down at us from the cliffs above. 

Resting next to the glacial lake, eating our sandwiches and talking about our great achievement gave us strength to practically race back down to the valley. It took a third of the time to get down as it took us to get up. In less than an hour we were back among other humans. We were satisfied and completely sure that a snowshoe-hike was worth ‘missing’ one day on the slopes for!

On our way to Lago Blu

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