Hike through the Rio delle Foglie Gorge

It is a sunny autumn day and we decide for a hike, we drive to Aldino, we park the car at the tourism centre Geoparc Bletterbach and we are ready to start to reach our target: the "Grand Canyon" of South Tyrol, the gorge of Rio delle Foglie. The geological trail starts directly from the parking area and it stretches through a protected woods area as we can read from a signpost. We follow the trail no. 3 towards the gorge. We reach the so-called “Taubenleck” passing through stairs and bridges. Here the path takes us through the gorge, which is surrounded by the steep and abrupt rock faces, this gorge has been burrowed by the river nearly 15.000 years ago.

The view is very suggestive here. Walking along the trail we find information signs concerning the most interesting elements of the Canyon: plants and shellfishes fossils, the legend of the gold glade as well as the geology of the gorge. After 30 minutes walking, we reach a big wonderful waterfall, which is called “Butterloch”.

At this point we have to walk back for a short section in order to get out of the stream bed on the Jagersteig.

After a short break we carry on our walk following the path, we walk through a wood, from where we can get a glimpse of the gorge and the path we went across before. We keep walking in a thick wood and we arrive to the Lahner Alm refuge. We decide to enjoy the last autumn sun on the green meadow and to have a rest. From here the starting point is not very far. We return following the signpost “Sentiero del Bosco” (Wood path) which leads us to the parking area. This is a fee parking, there aren´t any other parking spaces near here. From the parking you can also follow the trail no E5 to reach directly the Radegno village.

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Author: ED