COSTA CHIGGIA AND MONTE BUCH

For this hike you can leave your car at Parrocchia di Marmora, in the large parking lot in front of the church. From here there is a double option: continue along the paved road that with a wider and gentler path climbs up to the left, or follow the well-marked signs of the path that reaches Monte Festa steeper and more direct to rejoin the now dirt road at the Sagna Rotonda cottages.

From here, with very gentle gradients it is convenient to reach the Colle Intersile to the left of the aforementioned Monte Festa, abandoning the cartroad near a hollow. Climbing through meadows near the summit ridge, one reaches the summit of Costa Chiggia, and then continues on the watershed to Mt. Buch.

The beauty of the excursion is the wide panorama of the Alpine circle from the Dronero plain to the French border, dominated in the crossing by the imposing mass of the Monviso; for those who know the places (or with the help of a map) it is all a succession of well-known peaks, an observatory of rare beauty over the entire Valle Maira.​

From the top of the Buch you can descend again to the grange below, where a new dirt road reconnects to the starting point; back in the larch forest, be sure to pay a visit to the isolated chapel of St. Theodore, protector of pastures, from which there is a superb view of the Preit valley, in the territory of Canosio.​

And if you have been enchanted by the landscape, try to imagine it in winter with snow: you will definitely want to return there with snowshoes on your feet (here we call them ciastre) or on mountaineering skis, for a now-classic outing for introductory courses in this sport.