Rediscovering My Favourite Trail
The Scoggione is a challenging climb and quite a sight to behold at the top
High above the northern shores of Lake Como rises one of my favourite trails, the Scoggione on the imposing 2,609m Mt Legnone. Starting from the small Italian town of Colico, the Scoggione is a mix of four-wheel-drive road and steep brutal technical sections through the forest. Along the way you pass through a mix of rustic stone farm buildings and sections of desolate quiet forest track with sharp rises dispersed with flatter traverses.
Why I love Colico as a training base
Colico is a low key, very relaxed place without the more flashy touristic side of Como and the southern end of the lake, isolated yet easily accessible via the train. It’s perfect for training as it’s almost impossible to walk in most directions without climbing up a hill and there aren’t too many distractions apart from the scenic views of the lake and the odd ice cream shop. The Scoggione is the feature but there are a couple more traversing tracks that run along the edges of the forest, and a flatter gravel trail perfect for tempos which heads towards Dubino in the north-east along a canal. Also if you simply jump on the train (or ferry) for 20 minutes in either direction a world of varying trail options are available to you. On the downside it’s only at 218m, not at a massive altitude unlike some of its expensive northerly Swiss neighbours like St Moritz at 1,822m or Samedan 1,721m.
Getting into the Grind
To enter the Scoggione you take a meandering path through Colico and past the satellite suburb of Villatico split from the township by the highway, the early stages are tough but once you leave town the trail markers set you on a progressively steeper and steeper track. The most brutal section of the trail starts about 1km from Villatico near the Tori di Fontanedo fort and finishes at the Scoggione refuge which opens out to look across the entire lake. The Vertical Scoggione is just shy of a vertical kilometre, with 808 metres of vertical gain in just 3.3km. A vertical kilometre for those not familiar with the concept is exactly what it sounds like 1 kilometre of vertical elevation gain taking place over a short distance in a very steep upward direction. VKs as they are known usually are run across less than 5km of horizontal running, it is much steeper than most traditional ‘classic’ mountain races and often involves significant stretches of power hiking. The Vertical Scoggione is also home to an annual race that brings together the top Italian mountain runners from the region
Hike some, Run some
The Scoggione trail is the perfect place to train for mountain and vertical running as you are constantly trading running and power hiking along the route. Something you need to master if you even want to have hope of clinging on in the harsh uphill races of the Central Alps. Another key part of traversing the trail is good foot placement, the tree roots, stones and dirt trails certainly reward you for selecting the firmest most efficient paths. This year I also did the reverse of the trail up the other more open and flowy side from Pagnona towards the Mt Legnone summit with Australian all-round mountain athlete Lara Hamilton. That side is more of an aerobic test and apart from a couple of more rocky technical sections it zig-zags it more or less is runnable along most of the trail.
Building Toughness for the World Champs
In my mind the benefits of doing trails like the Scoggione is three-fold strengthening my legs, building my cardiovascular system and mentally conditioning myself for the long climb of the World Championships course. I have also thrown in a couple of races over the past few weeks to get myself into the racing mindset of fighting for every place. I finished 34th in the crazy deep Italian Uphill Championships in Premana and followed that with a 14th in the stacked field at the Thyon Dixence at altitude along the ski-slopes of Southern Switzerland, beating all the elite European athletes there. Having somewhere familiar like Colico to run in-between races has been good as it’s just easier to find where you’re going, easier to set yourself up for food and you know what to expect. Mt Legnone’s brutally vertical trails push you and at times break you, but the amazing views and evening dips in the lake help build you back up, exactly what you need in building up to such a massive event like the World Champs.
What’s your favourite trail? Leave a comment below.