Valmaggiore Nature Trail
- Trail Conditions: On foot
- Duration: main route, trail 1: 65 minutes
- Difficulty Level: suitable for every kind of training
- Difference in height: 60m
The itineraries marked with the words "Percorso Naturalistico Valmaggiore" (Valmaggiore Nature Trail) represent a circuit of trails developing along a charming stretch of Rio Valmaggiore, one of the main watercourses of the Reserve and, in some points, delimiting its northern border.
The itinerary gives the opportunity to observe the geo-morphological and naturalistic features of Vauda plateaus still used for agricultural purposes, and of the valley of Rio Valmaggiore.
The habitats of the plateaus are characterized by meadows and sowable lands interrupted by shrubby strips and new wood formations. Locally, it is possible to see rows of vineyards or of apple and pear trees.
Where the trail goes down to the erosion valley of the creek, the habitat becomes cool, wet, and shady. Here, hikers will cross common ash, hornbeam, and chestnut tree woods rich in important shrub species like the the glossy buckthorn, the hazelnut tree, the common hawthorn, the cornel, the common dogwood, the spindle, and the bird cherry. This forest formation, finding shelter along these steep banks and called oak-hornbeam formation of the lower plain, dominated in the past most of the Po Plain. Now it is increasingly rare because replaced by cultivated fields.
The geo-morphological features include the cliff of loc. Gerbola, an imposing consequence of the erosive action of the creek. Here it is possible to observe 30 meters of sedimentary stratification.
The circuit offers shorter or longer trails, touching Buretta country hamlet in the Municipality of Nole, the Municipality of Vauda Canavese and Ceretti country hamlet in the Municipality of Front.
The itinerary is formed by 4 trails:
- Trail no. 1 represents the main trail. It forms a ring-route leaving from Vauda Canavese, via San Carlo, developing along a dirt road crossing the plateau, and gradually going down to Rio Valmaggiore. In its southern stretch, the trail runs along the watercourse fording it several times, reaches The Soldiers' Fountain also called "del Virlu", and leads back to Vauda Canavese.
- Trail no. 2 has as its destination an old fountain known as "fontana Cascarina", situated near the confluence between rio Gerbola and Valmaggiore. The carriage road along which the itinerary develops leaves from trail no. 1, before going down to the valley of Rio Valmaggiore, and is headed eastwards in the cut of the two streams.
- Trail no. 3 represents an alternative route to reach Rio Valmaggiore valley and Fontana dei Militari (The Soldiers' Fountain), leaving from loc. Buretta and crossing loc. Ressegrande. The route consists of dirt and cycling roads.
- Trail no. 4 connects trail no. 3 and the SP road no. 21.
Also accessible by bike.
Road bottom: trail, track, and dirt road
