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Malga Fossetta – Castelloni – Cima Isidoro

At Malga Fossetta, on the footsteps of the "Piccoli maestri".

At Malga Fossetta, on the footsteps of the “Piccoli maestri”.

We examined the narrow gorge where the partisans of Roana had leaped (after the flight they were saved because in that year there was a lot of snow and they slipped away), and we saw again the bushes where we picked up the other bodies (…)

It was Bruno who found a handkerchief at the mouth of a narrow defile. He called us. They recognised that it belonged to Moretto. One lowered himself with a rope and on the first shelf he found the parabellum without bullets. Looking down the precipices of Valsugana someone seemed to see a darker spot in a lonely mountain pine over other precipices. We tried to let ourselves down with the ropes, but they did not reach that far; and rocks were very brittle at that point. Silvio said: “I will circle around through Porta Moline and go under” (…) When he reached the point, Silvio did not shout anything at us; he stood curved for quite a while and then he tried to get near under the wall: “Let the ropes down” he screamed at us from below, “and a sheet” (…)

We took him down under a freezing rain and hail; at the church of the Alpini of Bassano we stopped to take shelter from the storm. On the truck, we covered him with dripping flowers and two days later he had a funeral that even a king would never have.”

From “Ritorno sul Don” (Return to the Don), “Un ragazzo delle nostre contrade” (A boy of our lands).

 

The context

The shrine of Malga Fossetta.

The shrine of Malga Fossetta.

The short story reconstructs the recovery of the body of a young partisan of Asiago, Rinaldo Rigoni, known as Moretto, who fell on the spurs of Mount Isidoro on June 5, 1944, during the mopping-up by the Nazi-fascist militias in the area of Malga Fossetta, narrated in “I piccoli maestri” (The little teachers) by Luigi Meneghello. Moretto was a member of the company led by Antonio Giuriolo to which belonged the same writer of Malo, who managed to hide and escape. “When he was found he was down on an outrcrop with his weapon in hand,” writes Meneghello, “at the last moment, to not get caught, he had jumped from the rocks.”

When, after the war, it was decided to recover the bodies of the fallen (some probably jumped off the cliff to avoid being captured by the Germans) Mario Rigoni Stern, as an expert rock climber, was invited to join the operations, which lasted for several days.

 

The route

The "Castelloni of San Marco"

The “Castelloni of San Marco”

The route starts under Malga Fossetta (1,666 m), where you can arrive by car leaving, after about 17 km, the road that from Campomulo leads to the Ortigara. From here the path 845 starts, reaching Castelloni di San Marco (1830 m), an evocative maze of rocks below the ridge overlooking the Valsugana, after a good hour of moderate climb mostly in the woods. Here you can explore defiles, crevices and wartime positions, and after circumventing them, you return to the starting point.

The Valsugana seen from mount Isidoro.

The Valsugana seen from mount Isidoro.

Or you can, continuing along the path 842 (the Alta via degli Altipiani), move westwards until you reach (in twenty minutes) the Busa dei Quaranta. A hundred metres later, where the trail curves to the left, a detour rises to the top of the Isidoro (1,912 m), where the new path of the Sentiero dei Piccoli Maestri begins; in a hollow there is a plaque dedicated to the fallen partisan, and just above the ridge that opens onto the cliff, with a spectacular view of the Brenta valley. Further down, there are other gravestones in memory of the other fallen (climbing route). You descend again westwards on the new path which joins the path 842 just before Porta dell’Incudine (1.860 m), with other views of the Brenta valley. From here an easy descent leads to Malga Fossetta, preceded by the little church mentioned in the story.

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