27 August 2019 Climb to Monte Crocione

Today a non ride day with a climb to Monte Crocione which is behind the Hotel Villa Marie and stands at 1400m .

Monte Crocione

Crocione in Italian means large cross, and that is what adorns the top of Monte Crocione, a 1641 metre peak directly above the town of Griante. From here you will experience breathtaking views of Lake Como, and the Swiss and Italian Alps.

Here I describe two options for hiking to Crocione: the most direct and difficult route beginning at the foot of the mountain in Griante, and a gentler more comfortable route beginning a lot further south in the mountains above Argegno. But first, a little bit about the mountain.

Turned out to be quite a climb. Started out at 7am and the first km was through the quiet roads nnd footpaths along the houses sitting behind the hotel .It was still cool and comfortable .I ran where I could but it was mainly hiking the steep cobblestone paths.At about 1.5km it becme the footpath with stones

I did't follow the conventional route from Grante but it was still about 9km mainly steep footpaths though the paths and most of the sights in the video .

Got bitten lots by a flying insect .not sure what it was but that was a pain. It was pretty humid and luckily there was a spring with a trough of water so got atleast some water.On the way down I did run out of water and had 4 kms without any till I got to the spring which was about 3 km from the bottom.

The climb took me 2hrs 49 mins and the last bit was hard as I literary climbed on hands and knees to the top .There were a few hikers from Greece there they had parked their car and hiked in for an hour and were surprised I actually climbed to the top.

The run down was better but still slow going with the stone footpath.  Had an encounter with some goats above the Tuneel .One came and licked me and there were a few with some horns so I tried to carefully pass them . The legs were feeling the hike of 1400m and I was glad to finish in 4.40 hrs

Pictures were blurred by the condensation on the lens of the phone camera