The Questa Refuge and the Valscura circle

This type of forest is rather localized in the Maritime Alps, which notoriously represent the realm of the beech forest. It covers the slopes at the heads of the valleys with sparse and luminous populations, sometimes grazed by the herds that have climbed the mountain pastures. Most of the time their purity is not natural, but induced by man: in fact, over the centuries, man has favored this tree species to the detriment of others, such as the stone pine, for example, because they are less favorable for exercising the grazing due to the increased shading of the soil.

The mass of rocks over which the water falls is a typical example of a glacial rock step. During the glaciations it formed the lower limit of the lake at the foot of the glacier. A tongue of the glacier extended beyond the step.

Starting at the fork near the Valasco Refuge, the route follows former military road 452 "Pian del Valasco - Lower Lake Valscura", built in the early thirties to serve the Valscura defense system. In order to make it possible to drive transport vehicles on the road, which was not much more than a wide mule track, much of the 1909 military road had to be expanded, being too narrow to meet the new needs.

Since the end of the eighteen hundreds(an inscription on the remains of a shelter reads "3° Compagnia Alpini, 1888") Lower Lake Valscura was chosen as the site where troops were garrisoned to defend the strategic pass of Bassa del Druos. Beginning in 1888, when barracks were erected to house 140 soldiers and two officers, for almost fifty years buildings were constructed on this site, until the entire complex was finally transformed into an armory, officially known as A131,containing munitions, explosives and artillery pieces.

The portion of the route that runs from Lower Lake Valscura to Lake Claus follows the former military mule track that linked Valscura and Fremamorta. The mule track is one of the best-preserved examples of the old military roads that ran through the Valle Gesso, as well as a true masterpiece of engineering. Realized sometime around the very first years of the nineteen hundreds, a decade prior to the start of the second world war, in 1929, it was preventively upgraded by the Dronero Battalion and maintained in perfect condition. Over 10 km long, it never dips below an altitude of 2,000 meters and has a maximum incline of 18%. Portions of the road were skillfully paved with flagstones, still in place today.

Near the Hotel Royal one can admire two of the four Swiss-style chalets built in Terme in the XIX century and recently restored. Under the roof of one of them, known as the 'Bela Rosin' chalet, there is a date carved - 1857 - corresponding to the year of the institution of the Royal Hunting Reserve of Entracque and Valdieri.Rosa Vercellana, or 'Bela Rosin', married Vittorio Emanuele II according to morganatic ritual in 1869, and the couple was married by secular authorities in Rome, in 1877, a few months before the King's death. She never held the title of Queen.