Winterhorn / Pizzo d'Orsino (CH) - 2 662 meters
Nr 90
This first peak of today's 3 mountain hike (Winterhorn-Pizzo d'Orsirora-Pizzo dell'Uomo) is nominated to enter my top 5 favourite summits I've stood on so far.
Even if its surroundings are more famous in winter as there are perfect fields for ski touring, the summit of the Winterhorn is definitely worth a visit in summer. Located in the north of Ticino and exactly on the border to Canton Uri, from Winterhorn you get a great view of the Urseren Valley where at its end you have the famous village of Andermatt. Towards south (15th picture) you get a perfect view of the first Ticino mountains and also a great glance of the most iconic and probably most famous pass in the alps: The Passo del San Gottardo.
Regarding the hike itself:
We started at the Lucendro dam which is located just below the Gotthard pass, 500 meters to the north. From there we walked up to the peak following part of path 854a and part of path 855, both explainded at page 547 of the first Book of the CAS Guides about the Ticino-Region (Dal Gridone al Passo del San Gottardo).
In fact, we altered the path a little bit.. when we arrived at the Orsino Lake (picture nr.4) we passed it and walked up to the ridge above Orsino instead of entering the "Valle delle Piotte" as it was explained, once on the top of it somewhere between p.2588 and p.2628, we followed path 855 coming from Passo d'Orsino and reached the summit.
To be clear, the word "path" after going out of the marked trails at the Orsino Lake is a bit far-fetched, in fact we had to find our way through massive rocks with a lot of small climbing sessions involved (se different pictures below). Furthermore the last 60 meters are very steep and pretty exposed.
I Loved this peak, it's likely that I will visit it again someday.
Level: T4
With Katrin
ROUTE:
