Val Vogna

Val Vogna offered many hikes.[5]

The emigration route, connecting Valsesia and Val d'Aosta is the Antica via d'Aosta, later renamed via Regia (Royal path): This track is identified as No.201[6] by Club Alpino Italiano, with a black 1 on a red/yellow/red triparted marking on stones and trees.

The track 1a[7] variant leaves the main one after La Montata and head west on the woods on a short track to the Alpe Larecchio a former mountain lake basin, now a pasture land of marshes and grassfields, where a small nucleus of few houses is still in use to make Toma cheese.

Track 1c[8] gets a different route, from Alpe Larecchio to the west, up to Lago della Balma lake and then east on the peaks to reach the Colle Valdobbia

De Saussure followed the entire valley on his Great Tour of the Alpes:[9] the GTA (or no.205 path[10]) continued gently uphill from the Napoleonic Bridge following Vogna Torrent up to Alpe Maccagno another ancient pasture land at 2188m with few stone houses: this was the place of the original Toma del Maccagno cheese, while nowadays the name is in use by many producers, mostly on the Biella area that lay behind Passo del Maccagno Pass.

The CAI No.202 path[11] (bold 2 on red/yellow/red) that leaves the dirt road midway between Sant'Antonio and La Peccia Hamlet to head up the east bank of the Rissuolo valley to Alpe Pile where the Rifugio Abate Carestia[12] mountain hut is located and then up to Lago Bianco and Lago Nero (White and Black Lake) or the Corno Bianco, 3320 m., the highest peak in the Vogna valley in ma maze of sub-tracks

No.211 track gets to Corno Bianco in a more direct way, while No.210 starts from the lower hamlet of Ca di' Janzo, on the paved road, and climbs directly to Selveglio Hamlet and then the Cima Mutta peak 2135, the north bulkhead of the Vogna Valley overlooking Riva Valdobbia.

Oro hamlet in Vogna Valley seen from Selveglio hamlet along the "frazioni alte" trial

The above-mentioned tracks were mostly for experienced or dedicated hikers. A less strenuous but more interesting walk is the so-called giro delle Frazioni Alte, the Higher Hamlets ring. This ring is also marked as Via della Fede (Faith path) or "via dell'Arte"[13] by separate organizations, making some confusion in signs and names.

Basically, the tour touched all the Hamlets of the lower Vogna valley, in an in-depth exploration of how Walser lived up to the 19th century.

Each Hamlet is a self-sufficient nucleus, with a fountain, a community oven and a small chapel: but they are few hundred meters away one from the others creating a larger sparse community.

The ring has somehow a fixed route: it's basically a triangle, with the lower road (the above-mentioned No.1 track) from Ca' di Janzo and the higher path from Selveglio converging on La Peccia. The steep slope between the two paths doesn't allow to easily connect the lower and the higher Hamlets, except for the Sant'Antonio-Rabernardo shortcut.

So the usual way is to leave the car at Ca di Janzo and climb into the no. 10 track heading to Selveglio/Cima Mutta. Reached the Selveglio Hamlet, follow the track going west (left): without much change in altitude, that plain track will lead to Oro, Ca' Vescovo, Rabernardo, Cambiaveto, Piane and finally La Peccia hamlets. Then, going downhill on the dirt road, the ring will touch the lower hamlets of Sant'Antonio, Ca'Verno, Ca'Morca, Ca' Piacentino and back to Ca' di Janzo