Gazzirola (CH) - 2 116 meters
Nr 30
This was the fifth peak we reached during our 6 summit hike (Cima Calescio, Camoghè, Vetta del Vallone, Monte Segor, Gazzirola, Cima Moncucco) we had programmed for today.
It's located on the boarder between Switzerland and Italy with it's peak in Switzerland..
The Peak itself is nothing impressive, but it's a really important one for the city of Lugano as it's one of the 3 highest mountains which which can be seen from the city center. It's the Mountain everyone looks at in Winter to check if there is some snow coming or not :-), furthermore it's the highest peak of a famous Trail running race (Scenic Trail).
The views as shown in the fifth picture are really nice and really open to it's south-western side.
We started the ascent directly from the ridge which comes from Monte Segor following the path 249 explained in the official guides of the CAS (Swiss Alpine Club), page 246 of the 5th volume (Guida alle prealpi ticinesi). The route is shown in the 6th picture below.
Level information:
This route (the final summit ascent) is a T2+, having said that, we reached Monte Segor, Vetta del Vallone and Gazzirola through a T4 Ridge coming from the Camoghè which was completely off-path with some really exposed sections, where you've had to use your hands for a quick climb on the rocks. I wouldn't recommend this passage to anybody with fear of heights (paths 251 or 256, pages 247/254 of the 5th CAS volume (Guida alle prealpi ticinesi). For all the others...hell yes I recommend it :-)
I loved that ridge which absolutely needed some focusing and gave the whole hike a really interesting twitch.
With Katrin
ROUTE:
