Bessanese's Tour

The lakes on the way

Mountains' lakes and ponds are usually regarded by passionate mountains' trekkers as the main if not the chief attraction of the alpine landscape.
They appeal to them as piercing eyes mirroring the blue and cloudy skies above. Their clear, green to deep blue waters that at times may turn into dark and tenebrous ones may arouse a somewhat magic and captivating appeal. At least a hundred of these lakes and ponds either little or large are to be found at the Lanzo valleys.
We will mention hereafter only those that can be met along the Bessanese's route.
Indeed, these cannot be regarded solely as a romantic view of nature, but should be valued for their several functions :
They modulate positively the wheather conditions and climate on surrounding mountinous ranges; govern water flowing capacity of streams and creeks, provide for hydro-power production and supply other notable resources .
The mountains lakes are of two kinds generally speaking :
Artificial origin – This means that these lakes have been created by man for the main purpose of exploiting its resources ; i.e. Production of Hydro-Power, Land Irrigation and so on .
Glacial origin – This means that high on the mountains sides, likely over 2000 metres height, ancient glaciers have been carving out with their natural, endless , millenarian motion, smooth bowls. Later, as the ice melted, many of these bowls filled with meltwater to become the alpine tarns. Such tarns can be distinguished according to their distinctive features and therefore acknowledged as :
a) Cirque lakes if these occupy a conveying basin
b) Till or bedrock threshold lakes if these are located very closely to the till itself .
Such lakes will significantly form the focus of many of our hiking trails .
Lakes can additionally be differentiated as Morain lakes if created by unconsolidated piles of debris or scoured material to form a natural dam or intra-morain lakes if existing within a morain arc .
Regardless of the mechanism of their formation, the fate of all these lakes is the same – obliteration.
Many were formed of glaciers, and these same glaciers will eventually fill them in. High above the lakes, the action of weathering and erosion is slowly wearing down the mountains. As boulders and pebbles alike fall onto glaciers, they become a part of a moving conveyor belt of debris. Some will hitch a ride on top of the ice, but much more will become incorporated into the glacier. As the material is scraped and scoured along the valley floor and walls, it is quickly ground up into the rock flour. Hundreds of tonnes of this flour will flow off the glacier each day during the peak of summer melt. Where does all this material go? It heads directly into our many mountain lakes. A fast flowing river has the ability to carry immense loads. Unfortunately, the speed of rivers drops rapidly as the river enters a lake. This rapidly reduces the water’s ability to carry material, and so the river’s sediments are quickly deposited at the entrance to the lake. Soon deltas begin to form, and the process of in-filling begins. Eventually, all that will remain will be a braided stream flowing across the flat delta left behind by the deposition of incalculable amounts of sediment.
Hence we can say that a lake is classified as a young one if it contains cold, deep waters with no presence of vegetation whatsoever; else when some kind of animal or vegetable life begins to be present than we can assert beyond any doubt that the lake has reached its maturity. It will be slowly going towards its natural wipeout due to lack of oxygen for the noticeable quantity of plants that will take possession of the lake, tranforming it into a peat bog.