The itinerary begins at the church of Norcen, where there are some parking spaces and a picnic area. About twenty meters higher, you enter the mule path that, crossing a sparse forest, leads to the Trugno area (see itinerary 1 – Zinge for the detailed description).
From the crossroads, you continue uphill on a dirt road, enjoying glimpses of the village of Lamen and the mountains that border it to the north. Along the path, there are buildings that preserve some typical features of rural architecture, such as roofing with stone slabs (laste). The Red Scaglia emerges from the ground, a limestone rock extracted and used for construction; in fact, the "squaring" of the wall reveals the existence, even in this place, of a small quarry.
After passing a large beech tree, you enter a mule path in the Grip area; here, you can notice dark boulders, transported here by an ancient glacier. The path continues uphill with some bends, shortly veering to the right, to tackle a steeper and stony section.
In the woods, the presence of beech trees becomes noticeable, accompanied by the red fir. Shortly, we reach an important crossroads, from where you can continue towards Salzena and the Paradis or towards the Valley of Lamen, following different routes. Going left, one observes a slope covered with lush ferns and soft mosses and a stump with roots exposed from the ground and colonized by shelf fungi.
In a few minutes, you reach the roadway that, downhill, leads to a meadow with some rustic buildings and a majestic ash tree. From here, you can enjoy an excellent view: to the northwest over the Magheron and the grassy rectangle of the Camogne and to the east over the natural terrace of Lamen. On the opposite side of the valley, forms of erosion stand out on fluvio-glacial deposits, similar to the famous earth pyramids of Trentino.
Continuing the journey, you skirt a meadow with pollarded willows, elements of agricultural landscape that are now increasingly disappearing: we find ourselves in the Salchegn area. You continue to descend, in sight of the wooded hill that dominates Norcen, crossing the aqueduct canal. Immediately after, you leave the roadway to take the path on the left that descends into the woods and leads back to the Trugno crossroads; from here, following the path retraced at the beginning, you return to the church of Norcen.
INSIGHT ON... Majestic and Elegant Trees
There are trees in the forest that stand out for their size, shape, or particular characteristics. Among the most majestic are the oaks, which are now rarely encountered in the forest environments of Valbelluna. Plants with countless uses, valuable for their wood, but also for the fruit, the acorn, which once nourished pigs, and for the bark, from which tannin was extracted; even the leaves were collected and used as fodder and bedding. The local species, durmast, oak, and turkey oak, are distributed in different habitats. The durmast, which prefers fertile and deep soils, acquires a robust and "lived-in" appearance with age, due to its dark and fissured bark. The white hornbeam, on the other hand, stands out for its elegant posture, smooth light-colored bark, and ribbed trunk, characterized by a sinuous succession of protrusions and recesses. It is one of the most widespread tree species from the valley bottom to the hilly areas of the foothill belt; spontaneous in the forests, it was also used in the past for the establishment of hedges and roccoli. Besides being used as firewood, its wood is suitable for building parts of tools or equipment that require resistance to stress.
