Cima dell'Uomo (CH) - 2 390 meters

First and also highest peak of our hike today (Cima dell'Uomo - Cima d'Erbea).

We started our day with a cable car ride which brought us up from Monte Carasso to Mornera. It's already mid october and days are short, as Katrin had a dinner plans she couldn't miss, the objective was to go for a hike which wasn't longer than 6 hours.

A start from the complete bottom of the valley would have meant a hike of 9 to 10 hours and a + 3000 meters in height. You wouldn't do any more dinners or similar things after that...or at least most of us wouldn't :-) 

We walked up on paths 8 and 1675 explained at pages 34 and 444 of the second Book of the CAS Guides about the Ticino-Region (Dal Cristallina al Sassariente), path 8 is the one that goes from Mornera to the Capanna Albagno and path 1675 is the one that really brings the hiker to the peak from there. 

The Cima dell'Uomo is a beautiful summit which gives a completely open view on all sides. In fact, you can see towards a lot of the 4000 meter peaks in France and Valais and towards south at almost all of the Luganese Pre-Alps (as can be seen on the seventh picture).

Most of the way up is on a well marked path which most of the time is pretty steep (path 1675). The cool thing about this peak though, is that the last 30 meters are more or less vertical and need to be climbed (picture nr.6). Having said, the climb is eased by some Iron steps which have been fixed in to the rock; but still.. a fall could result in serious injuries. 

For example when we were there, a couple of older hikers decided to stop before this last section and not climb to the top as they didn't feel confident enough for it.

It's likely that we will come here again some time. The small cable car was a funny experience and the hike is super interesting: nice landscapes, nice paths and a small technical part in the end helped to make it a great day.. and as said in the first sentence of this "article", this was only the first peak of today.

The last two pictures are from last year when in november we were on the Madonetto and took some pictures of the ridge we were walking on today. 

Level: T3+ (due to the last section, even if the path is always marked clearly and no off-path is needed for the whole hike)

With Katrin

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