Sentiero dei Fiori “Claudio Brissoni”

From the Capanna 2000, at 1,960 metres according to the CAI, you climb north for a few minutes on the path to the summit, then bear left onto trail 244, which the hut calls the upper path. You cross the Val d'Arera, a slope of rock debris where the first flowers appear, and gain height below the cliffs to Passo Gabbia: 2,050 metres for the Park, about 2,060 for the CAI.

From the pass a short descent leads into the Mandrone, the glacial hollow enclosed between the Corna Piana and the Pizzo Arera. At the junction with trail 218, at about 2,050 metres, the circuit continues right towards Passo di Corna Piana; the Sentiero dei Fiori instead takes the 218 to the left up to the Bocchetta di Corna Piana, 2,078 metres, the highest point of the loop. From there you descend over scree and loose rock to Passo Branchino, 1,821 metres, with the lake just below on the Valcanale side.

The return is on trail 222, the hut's lower path: it traverses the hillside above the head of the Val Vedra with continual ups and downs, crosses the pastures of the Baita Branchino (1,836 metres, where trail 231 arrives from Zorzone), passes the Val d'Arera again and joins trail 221 at the signpost just below the hut, at about 1,935 metres. For this section, walked from the pass to the Capanna 2000, the CAI allows 1 h 30.

The loop starts at the hut, which is reached from Zambla Alta: at the start of the village a sign points left to Plassa, from where a steep road climbs to the Alpe Arera car park, at about 1,600 metres, below the old ski lifts and next to the Rifugio SABA Cà d'Arera. Parking is paid: the municipality charges a €4 ticket for all vehicles, to be bought before the climb at the parking meters in Plassa, opposite the apartment blocks, or in participating shops, and displayed clearly.

From the car park the Capanna 2000 is less than an hour away, on CAI trail 221 or on the farm track, which is longer but less steep. The road up to 1,600 metres is used in summer and when free of snow; in the other months the CAI gives Plassa as the starting point, near the Camping Arera, at about 1,150 metres, from where the hut takes 1 h 50 and about 900 metres of ascent according to the regional hut portal.

Those coming from the Seriana valley or from Roncobello join the loop at Passo Branchino: from Valcanale di Ardesio on trails 220 and 218 via the Alpe Corte hut, from the Baite di Mezzeno on trail 219. The Park calls these two approaches the Butterfly Trail, because they cross meadows and pastures well suited to watching butterflies and moths.

The Orobie Bergamasche Park names July as the month with the most species in flower; the CAI considers trail 244 walkable from May to October. Among the endemics listed by the Park are the Bergamo toadflax, which the hut regards as the trail's emblem flower, the Pizzo Arera bedstraw, the Presolana saxifrage, the Concarena sandwort and the Orobie burnet. Wikipedia adds more widespread species such as edelweiss, Elisabeth's catchfly, Duby's violet, alpine poppy and alpine thrift, and in spring crocuses flowering on the meadows.

Habitats change within a few dozen metres. On the steep slopes towards the ridges the Park describes patchy grassland of firm sedge, which forms compact cushions and arrives after pioneers such as mountain avens and blue saxifrage. Lower down, towards the Val Vedra and Lake Branchino, the soils are more developed and the pastures richer, with mat-grass and purple gentian. On the scree grow plants with runners and deep roots, able to renew themselves as the debris slowly slides downhill.

The Park has paired the Sentiero dei Fiori with a Butterfly Trail because the lean meadows on limestone, grazed by a few animals and mown without fertiliser, are home to many species of butterflies and moths. The most remarkable case is Scythris arerai, a tiny moth that lives only on the Arera massif: discovered in the 1990s, it was formally described in 2000. On the same days you may see Erebia pandrose, a butterfly now confined to high altitudes which during the ice ages lived over much larger areas.

As for mammals, the G.S. Marinelli group that walked the loop on 1 August 2024 watched chamois with their young grazing, and the hut mentions the chance of meeting them on the east ridge of the Arera too. For the Park, the abandonment of grazing, followed by the advance of the forest, is a threat to these meadows and to the butterflies that live in them.

Those who want to go all the way round the mountain stay on the 244 beyond the Mandrone: from the junction with the 218 it climbs to Passo di Corna Piana, 2,133 metres, descends briefly, leaves the 218 to the left and runs along the foot of the north face to the gully of the Forcola di Valmora. The last climb crosses scree and a band of rock with an exposed section; from the col, 1,994 metres for the CAI and 1,966 on the OpenStreetMap map, you return across the south side with ups and downs to the Capanna 2000.

CAI Bergamo gives about 7.4 kilometres, 400 metres of ascent and the same of descent, altitudes between 1,730 and 2,150 metres, grade EE and 3 hours; the hut instead gives 5 hours and 703 metres. On the south side the G.S. Marinelli flyer counts four chain-protected sections, while the report of the same outing mentions chains in two rocky gullies. Since 31 May 2026 the CAI reports that some anchors of the chain below the Forcola di Valmora have come away from the rock and urges caution.

Botanists have been interested in the Arera for a long time. The Park recalls the Bergamo pioneers L. Rota and E. Rodegher and above all the excursion of G. B. Traverso, professor of botany at the University of Padua, who in 1908 published the booklet «Una salita botanica al Pizzo Arera». In 1912 P. Chenevard cited Arera species in the «Florula di Roncobello»; in 1949 F. Lona described Linaria tonzigii and in 1957 H. Merxmüller and F. Ehrendorfer Galium montis-arerae, which therefore have their locus classicus here, the place of their first description.

Claudio Brissoni took up that research in the 1960s and 1970s: he had Traverso's booklet republished in the 1975 yearbook of CAI Bergamo and, with other enthusiasts, identified the area between the Capanna 2000 and Passo Branchino as the one with the highest concentration of endemics. The first description of the Sentiero dei Fiori appeared in the 1979 CAI Bergamo yearbook; in 1987 the route was recognised by the Environmental Education Centre of the Lombardy Region.

On 6 September 1987 Brissoni gathered enthusiasts, organisations and institutions at the Alpe Arera to propose an association devoted to the wild flora of the Bergamo mountains: so the Flora Alpina Bergamasca group was born, formally constituted on 17 October that year, and he was its first president until 1999. He died in 2003 and in 2004 the municipality named the trail after him; the Park's page also mentioned a permanent exhibition on the Sentiero dei Fiori at the Capanna 2000.

The CAI recommends May to October for the 244 and April to October for the 218 and 222; the traverse of the 222 faces north, so early in the season it is worth asking at the hut whether snow patches remain. For the peak of the flowering, July is still the reference. The CAI recommends boots and high-mountain clothing: you walk above 2,000 metres, over the rock debris of the Val d'Arera and down the loose descent from the Bocchetta di Corna Piana.

Along the loop the only support point apart from the Capanna 2000 is the small Rifugio Lago Branchino, on the Valcanale side a few minutes from the pass: for the 2026 season its blog gave it as open on Saturdays and Sundays in September and October. Many species can be seen without leaving the path, as the G.S. Marinelli noted: that is the right way to observe them, because several are rare or found only on this massif.