Shall we have one more hike, before the August holidays? Located in Canton Ticino, not far from the St Gotthard pass, the Piora valley is said to offer wondrous views, as it features one big lake and countless little lakes, located at different altitude levels. The idea then is to have a hike this Sunday (July 27th), along 4 of these lakes (Ritom, Tom, Taneda and Scuro) and end up on Piz Taneda, a mountain that should present us with a 360 degree view of the Piora valley.

The hike should take around 5 hours, but is not particularly difficult: the landscape is rather gentle, plus we'll take the cable car to reach Piora from Piotta. Trail difficulty is T2 (medium), with a vertical gain of 800 metres.

Here's the hike map:
http://www.magat.it/montagna/mappe/pizzo_taneda_240808.JPG

and what the lakes look like:
http://www.lagoritom.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=54&lang=it

Return will be in the evening, we'll probably catch the cable car back around 6pm.

********** meeting in val Piora *********************

Let's meet at Piotta bus station at 10:57am. "Piotta Posta" is the exact name of the stop, from which we'll walk to the cable car station. If I'm not mistaken, there should be a bus arriving at that time from both directions: if you come from Zug/Zurich, you should get to Piotta by changing train in Airolo; if you come from Lugano/Chiasso, you should hop aboard the bus in Faido.

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money saving tip:

While this may not be the cheapest one-day hike, there is a way for saving some money: buy the tickets to Piora (i.e. the cable-car station, from which we'll start the hike) from www.railaway.ch: you'll get 20% off.
More precisely, this is the link:
https://freizeit.sbb.ch/storefront/product?productId=393438923&lang=en

Last but not least, if you have questions/doubts/Hamlet-like dilemmas, my number is +39 329 7203364