Snowshoe walk to the Capanna 2000 from Plassa

From Zambla Alta take via Plassa and follow it for 4-5 kilometres, about ten minutes by car, to the area of the Camping Arera. Here, near the barrier that in summer marks the start of the toll road, you leave the car: it is the car park CAI Bergamo recommends for trail 221 and the one used by Luca Gherardi in his winter report of February 2025.

You climb on the asphalt road, snow-covered or trodden in winter. Diska's description, written while walking the same stretch in December 2016, counts a long series of hairpins between 1,200 and 1,400 metres, the sign for Giuliano Mauri's Cattedrale Vegetale and, higher up, the pastures from which you see the Arera, the Grem and, behind you, the Alben. Before 1,600 metres you pass next to the Cà d'Arera hut of the SABA, a private building: a short detour lets you cut a few hairpins.

At the Alpe Arera car park, where cars arrive in summer, the remains of the old ski lifts begin. From here there are two options: carry on along the forest track, the most trodden, or follow the line of trail 221 up the spur overlooking the Val Vedra, with the Cima di Menna and the Pizzo ahead. According to ciaspole.net the two tracks join again just below the hut; above 1,600 metres you can also draw your own line in fresh snow, avoiding the steepest slopes.

The reports disagree on the figures, and it is worth knowing why. CAI Bergamo starts the winter route of trail 221 from Zambla Alta at about 1,150 metres and gives it about 900 metres of ascent; ciaspole.net starts at 1,200 metres and gives about 1 hour 45 of climbing; Luca Gherardi, who recorded the GPS track, counted about 5 kilometres and 750 metres of ascent one way, around ten kilometres in all, with about 2 hours up. Diska reports a CAI signpost that from the car park at 1,200 metres gives the Capanna 2000 at 2 hours 10.

The differences depend on where you leave the car and how much of the road you follow: staying on the hairpins makes it longer, cutting them makes it steeper. The CAI sheet also needs reading carefully, because its 3.6 kilometres and 1 hour 10 of climbing are summer values, while the same sheet's winter description points out that the road alone to the start of the old lifts measures about 4 kilometres; the CAI, after all, recommends the trail from April to October. To plan the day, the prudent estimate is a good 2 hours up and an hour and a half down, with the short daylight of December and January.

The road that climbs from Plassa to 1,600 metres is not closed out of habit but by ordinance. For winter 2025-26 the mayor banned all vehicles from 18 November 2025, for public safety and technical reasons, also closing the bypass next to the avalanche barrier on via Plassa; the provisional reopening came with another ordinance from 22 April 2026. For winter 2026-27 the ordinance has not yet been published.

When the road is open, precise rules apply: a 30 km/h limit, a ban on vehicles over 3.5 tonnes and on those towing a trailer carrying other vehicles, and no parking along the road outside the marked spaces. At the Alpe Arera car park you pay at the municipal parking meter, 4 euros according to the Rifugi di Lombardia portal. In winter there is nothing to pay at Plassa, but the spaces run out quickly: in his report Gherardi warns that at weekends, arriving after 9 am, only the roadside is left.

The Arera side lies in zone 60, Orobie Bergamasche, of ARPA Lombardia's snow and avalanche bulletin. With the European avalanche micro-region boundaries in force since 3 November 2025, the line with zone 61, Prealpi Bergamasche, runs further south, along the depression between the Colle di Zambla and Pian della Palla. The bulletin is updated every day during the season; the last one of the past winter, issued on 14 May 2026, announces the next issue for Tuesday 1 December 2026.

On the trodden road the danger is low, but the summer line and the variants in fresh snow cross open, south-facing slopes, where after a snowfall and with the first sun the snowpack changes quickly: ciaspole.net explicitly recommends avoiding the steepest passages so as not to trigger slides. Since 1 January 2022, Legislative Decree 40/2021 has required anyone going out on snowshoes or touring skis in snowy terrain where there are avalanche risks to carry a transceiver, shovel and probe; ARPA Lombardia recommends always having them and judging each individual slope, because the bulletin describes large areas.

The Capanna 2000 is owned by the municipality of Oltre il Colle and run by Attilio Rizzi. The Rifugi di Lombardia portal lists 25 beds, 80 seats indoors and 30 outside, half board from 48 to 60 euros, hut telephone 0345 95096 and mobile 339 6986367. The management contract, extended by the town council executive on 8 April 2026 until 30 September 2027, requires opening at least on Sundays, public holidays and the days before them all year round, continuously from 15 June to 15 September and over Christmas and Easter, but allows exceptions for bad weather and for the works.

The works are those of Regione Lombardia's 2024 huts call, which covers 90 per cent of the cost: the municipality awarded them on 28 April 2026 with a deadline of 119 days from the handover of the site, whose date has not been published. The extension resolution warns that the building site may limit the service, even significantly, up to complete suspension. The regional portal's indicative 2026 calendar, checked on 1 October, shows no openings from January to April and the hut closed from 8 September onwards.

Yes, but it is no longer a snowshoe walk. The Rifugi di Lombardia portal gives the summit, at 2,512 metres, about an hour and a half from the hut on the normal route with a short protected section; CAI Bergamo documents a protected gully above the Capanna 2000, and ciaspole.net specifies that in winter the top can only be reached with winter mountaineering equipment. With snow and ice you need crampons, an ice axe and experience: the three winter ascents of the basin are described on the page dedicated to ski touring on Arera, Alben and Menna.