22. Campotosto – Lago Campotosto

The wide mountain valley that houses one of the largest and most scenic lakes in the Apennines

The beautiful mountain area of Campotosto (1420 m), one of the highest inhabited areas of the Apennines in the territory of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park. Behind it there is the watershed of the Laga with the soaring Monte di Mezzo (2155 m), characterized by amountain environment almost completely intact and poorly anthropized. From a pastoral country to an important tourist destination. The tourist vocation is today given by the enchanting Lago di Campotosto, an artificial reservoir that occupies an ancient valley full of peat created in the
twentieth century following the construction of three dams for hydroelectric purposes.

Description of the trail

From the village of Campotosto you descend towards the lake leaving the village and crossing the land used for grazing and cultivating. After a small ford you follow a country road that runs along the regional road 577 up to intercept it. Continue along the asphalt road of LakeCampotosto until you turn left into Casale (1344 m) for a dirt road that begins to climb up the meadow until you reach the forest and then the ridge at an altitude of 1600 m.

The trail continues around the ridge halfway up the hill and into the beech forest reaching a large clearing in the Coppo area. From here the path begins to descend into the beechwood gradually up to the Diga del Rio Fucino (1365 m). Then go down the ford on the Rio Fucino (1290 m) and climb up the opposite side coming out of the wood near a meadow-pasture and reaching a dirt road that bypasses a ridge overlooking Lake Campotosto and descends to the regional road of the same name near an inn at the junction for Ortolano.

At the school of seismology

This mountain area is subject to repeated movements of the ground as it is home to an important fault of the Abruzzo Apennines, located between the centers of Montereale, Capitignano and Campotosto. Several destructive earthquakes have been documented over the centuries in L’Aquila and surroundings, from 1461 to 1703, from 2009 until reaching the present day with the event of January 2017, characterized by a magnitude of up to 6.8 degrees on the Richter scale. The challenge of the future will be to find the way to live with these events and with the natural shift of the terrestrial crust here particularly evident and felt.