Summary
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Trail in numbers
- Distance: 22.5 km
- Total climb: 600 m
- High point: 1810 m
- Ridable: 100%
- Duration: 3-4 h
Highlights
- Gotthard Massif. This trail offers very nice views of the peaks of this mountain range that separates four Swiss cantons: Ticino, Valais, Uri and Graubünden. The tallest peak is Pizzo Rotondo, reaching 3192 meters a.s.l.
Useful info
- When to go: May to October, as long as there is no snow. June-September are normally free from snow.
- Trail options:. There is a cablecar in Airolo that takes all the way up to Pesciüm, but make sure you check out their opening season if you co not want to end up like we did!.
- Food and Water: It is a short trail and you should have no problem carrying some water bottles and a few snack bars just in case. When the cablecar is running, there is a restaurant at the top to fuel up or grab a beer after the climb.
- Recommended gears&bike: this a very easy trail, a hardtail bike with medium travel is more than fit for the purpose.
- Starting point: Cablecar parking in Airolo. Otherwise, you can drive up to Nante as we did to save some 250 meters to climb, but then you will need to go back to the pick up your car anyways. Airolo is a 2 hours drive from Milan.
Airolo is a Swiss mountain village close to the Gotthard pass offering great outdoor opportunities. Read our story and watch our beautiful pictures taken when cycling the Pesciüm valley.
Photostory
It is a summer Sunday, the weather is amazing but we made a commitment to staying at home. We’ve been accumulating too much stress lately and Maria has just spent four intensive days in the US for business, and she is feeling exhausted after her express Coast to Coast, and we decided to stay put in Milan and unwind.
On Saturday, we managed to stick to the plan, spending half day mellowing out in the couch and the evening out having fancy aperitivos and delicious meals. However, after an entire day spent doing what felt like dragging my feet, I felt the familiar tickle in my palms, unmistakable sign that I wanted to get out and do something.
Luckily Maria is up for a day in the outdoors. We decide to head to a place pretty much halfway between Milan and Basel so that she can go back home by train. Maria quickly decides that Airolo is a good place to go, and so here we are, just a couple of hours away from Milan.
Airolo is famous for its traffic jams. Not exactly a typical description of a little mountain town 1000 meters above sea level you would say! That is because the E2 motorway cuts across it from south to north, just before entering the renowned Gotthard tunnel, a 16km long single-lane tunnel connecting the Italian speaking Swiss region of Ticino to the German speaking part of Switzerland, which mathematically gets insane traffic jams on Sundays, when Swiss weekenders make their way back from cheap and sunny Italy.
Thanks to the Waze navigation app we outsmart the traffic and get to our starting point in no time, just to discover that the cableway that is supposed to take us to the highest point of today’s track is not running. Maria gives me her “the hell I am going to pedal my way up” look, so I decide to drive up towards the highest point we can reach by car and begin from there, planning on climbing up alone to get the car alone and at the end of the day.
We get to the minuscule town of Nante, at 1425m. From here it is only 375m to the Pesciüm mountain, the tallest point of our ride.
Maria is down on energy today and the climb progresses slowly, but it is a pleasure to ride comfortably surrounded by the beautiful snow-capped rocky cliffs towering above us.
We reach the summit by lunch time, such a perfect timing for a picnic enjoying the scenery.
After lunch we hit the track again (marked as route 390) and enter into the beautiful Bedretto Valley.
We take a few more relaxing breaks to rest in the sun and enjoy the view, then it’s time to go back, making the time for a shot but exciting ride along a single track in the woods.
The climb back to the car offers a great opportunity for some training, so in a short while we’re good to go, happy of the wonderful weekend!
Maps and Stats
Max elevation: 1811 m
Total climbing: 1161 m
Video
Relive ‘Airolo – monte Pesciüm con Maria’