Cima di Fojorina (CH) - 1 809 meters
nr 104
This peak is a pretty famous one in this region and I had planned it in a much bigger hike that I wanted to do next summer. Having said that, the reason why this peak is known to a lot of people, is that it's a great place to find some powder in winter for anybody willing to do some ski moutaineering to earn it. And basically that's exactly what we did today.... and it was awesome!!
We started the ascent on our skis from the village of Cimadera , partially following path 413 explained in the official guides of the CAS (Swiss Alpine Club), page 312 of the 5th volume (Guida alle prealpi ticinesi). In fact, as it's winter and the paths are well covered, we had to improvise when we were at the bottom of the powder run coming down from this peak (at 46°03'52.123"N 9° 04'00.395"E). The peak itself is listed at page 316 of the same book.
It was our first peak reached on snow and also the first peak on my personal list from which we could ski down, which was awesome as we got very lucky with the snow. In fact, it was so cool, that we did the exact same thing the day after.. we walked back up here and skied down.
I'm pretty sure we might do that more often now, as the start of this hike is only 20 car-minutes away from our current apartment, where honestly we would've never expected to find such perfect conditions for freeride skiing. Of course the descent is not that long, but totally worth the hike.
On top the views are amazing, as on the left you have a great look down to the the italian side of the Lago di Lugano and on the right side you get an open view towards the "real" alps. We had a blast up here, probably one of the best lunch brakes since a lot of months for sure ;-)
I would also recommend to do this hike in summer as in the end the only thing that changes is the missing descent on snow, I would say that the difficulty should be around T3- from what I could see.. also whats worth to mention is that it's pretty short from where we started.
Level (ski-mountaineering grade): LD
With Katrin
Note: THE ROUTE BELOW IS THE ONE FOR WINTER FOR SKI MOUNTAINEERING.
Update: Here I am a few years later. I've hiked this peak in summer a bunch of times now. I still keep only winter pictures as long as I don't get nice pictures of it in summer, but somehow I always have either bad light or i just forget it..
