Sentiero Verzasca – from Sonogno to Lavertezzo in the Verzasca Valley

When the weather trends slowly became apparent over Pentecost, we booked two nights in Locarno at relatively short notice exactly one week ago. It looked as if Ticino would indeed be the “sunniest room” of Switzerland at Pentecost. I know Locarno well from various “GA travelcards”. But I haven’t made a trip to Ascona or the wild and romantic Verzasca Valley yet. The weather adhered to the forecasts and gave us two days of splendour. On the first day we explored Locarno and Ascona. On the second day, we skipped the hotel breakfast in favor of an early hiking start and took the post bus shortly after seven o’clock in the morning to Sonogno. The Sentiero Verzasca leads in two stages across the Verzasca Valley. The loud gurgling of the river accompanies you every step of the way. From time to time, forest clearings and pastures allow a glimpse of the mesmerizing emerald green color and the eroded rock formations.

We experienced our first highlights of the day on the Postbus ride. The impressive dam of Lago di Vogorno (world famous thanks to the James Bond film “Goldeneye”) is followed by Corippo on the left, above the lake. The entire complex of the closed village centre is listed and is one of the most beautiful villages in Ticino. Without the flexibility of owning a car, it was just an admiring glance through the Postbus window. The second stage of the Sentiero Verzasca passes through Corippo. However, we wanted to hike the first stage first.

Start of the hike in Sonogno

On the first kilometers from Sonogno to just before Brione we were on our own. The hiking trail leads through wooded areas, across open fields and past crumbling rustici. Shortly after Brione, a group of boulderers who were scrambling around on a protruding rock face in the riverbed stopped us. A few meters further down, a group of kayakers were preparing for the wild ride. Looking into the wild riverbed, I couldn’t imagine with the best will in the world how people would do this to themselves voluntarily. Interestingly, it took them about the same amount of time to get to Brione – Lavertezzo by kayak as we did on foot.

End of the hike in Lavertezzo

The second section of the trail was much busier than the first. We met the first hikers who were marching down the Sentiero in the opposite direction. And the closer we got to Lavertezzo, the more day-trippers came towards us with their children and cones. The beautiful weather in combination with the Pentecost weekend was clearly noticeable when looking down into the riverbed from the Ponte dei Salti. It was like going to and fro like in an outdoor pool on a beautiful summer day. The quieter and, above all, shadier alternative to sunbathing on the rocks is located right next to the filigree arch bridge. The Grotto al Ponte serves Ticino platters from the valley. Despite the many people around Lavertezzo, the Sentiero Verzsaca was a great preparation for the upcoming mountain tours in summer.

If you want to enjoy the beauty of this place alone, you should get up early. That’s exactly what we did the next morning and drove up to Lavertezzo again. The atmosphere shortly after 8 o’clock in the morning was more appealing to me than the hustle and bustle on Sunday afternoon.

Practical information and tips for the first stage of the Sentiero Verzasca

The route can be found on the map below. The distance from Sonogno to Lavertezzo is about 13 kilometres. If you hike downhill, you have to cope with a gradient of around 600 metres in altitude and an ascent of around 200 metres in altitude. We hiked downhill – in retrospect I would choose the uphill version, so we would have had the Ponte dei Salti in Lavertezzo to ourselves in the early morning. The hiking time is about 3.5 hours without breaks (signposted are 4.15 h in Sonogno). The Verzasca Valley can be reached from Locarno by post bus. However, this runs very irregularly and if you are travelling by public transport, you should compare the hiking time with the Postbus timetable. If you have enough time to spare, I recommend extending the route to Corippo.