A Short Story About The Hiking Surprises
Sometimes the places you want to go don't seem very interesting or curious, but they give you many surprises along the way. Near Biella you can find the most beautiful and curious places to visit
Just two years ago, a friend of mine and I decided, in the middle of winter, to go and climb Mount Mombarone (2371m above sea level). This is not the best idea even for more experienced walkers than us: it takes special equipment because you can find ice where you don't expect it, even if it seems like the mountains are bare.
But I want to tell you right away so you don't worry: we were sure we couldn't do it. We decided to walk in that direction until a specific time to return home when there was still light. Even in summer, you have to go out very early to get there.
As seen in the photo, the weather was so good that you could see the peak of Monviso (just behind me). In the background, you can see the famous Five Lakes and the city of Ivrea behind them. On the right of the lakes, on the slope, you can see Andrate, a spectacular medieval village, I’ll tell you about it one day.
I had a nice map — I never go out without it — where interesting places were marked. We are both adherents of “ravanaggio” (looking for off-track adventures on our butt) and we wasted time looking for those places, too.
On the photo ⬆︎ is a “Big Bench”. There are many of them scattered all over Northern Italy in panoramic places, and there are also hikers who visit these benches. This one is the Big Bench 155 ORANGE in Andrate if you want to find it.
It’s at the 1600 m above sea level, I think. It was just time to turn back, and we decided to continue with the dirt road you see in my photo.
We had fun walking up the paths, on the way, we found a quartz quarry (but without quartz since everything had already been removed centuries ago). The weather was beautiful — we were delighted with the walk.
Suddenly, raising our heads, we saw huge icicles right above us. Honestly, I have never seen such huge icicles, even when I lived much further north. What can we say about Biella? There is no snow here, at least in the years I have lived here. Let’s go, let’s go to touch them, we cried. Imagine our surprise when we found a road that took us straight to this place. AND…
What we discovered was an abandoned quartz quarry. It was written that it was forbidden to enter, but there was so much water inside, that it was not possible to get close.
Quartz is not at all rare in the earth's crust, being the second most widespread mineral. On the paths to Mombarone you can come across clusters of white quartz of impressive dimensions even on the surface. They told me that from Bessa (another very interesting place near Biella) people have removed all the rose quartz. Although sometimes it is still found.
