The Sasso Malascarpa Natural Reserve: overview on Lakes Briantei, Lecco and surrounding mountains. Nature and economical-rural and architectural elements.

Sasso Malascarpa, site of EU interest, represents one of the most interesting areas in Lombardy under the geological, geomorphologic and paleontological point of view.
The protected reserve covers an area of 196 hectares and its placed partly in the municipality of Canzo and in the municipality of Valmadrera and is partially overlapping the San Tomaso Park.

The reserve Sasso Malascarpa offers an interesting slice of the past under a geological and geomorphologic point of view: the nowadays visible rocks are the result of a slow and millennial process of stratification and transformation of the sea bottom, anciently  inhabited by a wide range of mollusks, corals and fishes.
Sasso Malascarpa is identified by a massive calcareous wall where you can easily discover the fossils of Conchodon, a bivalve mollusk of High Triassic,  shaped like a heart.

The denomination Sasso Malascarpa has different origin theories: someone state it becomes from the mascherpa, a ricotta produced by the traditionally mountain pastures, others say it is attributable to the word masca, i.e. witch, due to the fact this area hosted rocks and stones  with very strange and sinister shapes, as well as the fossil of Conchodon similar to the devil’s hoofs.

Sasso Malascarpa Reserve hosts several interesting elements to discover:

• the grooved fields (karstic phenomenon) watchable from a proper area at the top
• the stratified rocks and caverns
• at “acqua del fò” locality you can admire an old-centuries tree of great dimensions
• along the path to San Tomaso you can see several “casote”, the ancient rural building used by the mountain pastures
• many rare and protected botanic species
• a wonderful overview on Lakes Briantei,Lake Como and the surrounding mountains.

Sasso Malascarpa Reserve  is easy to explore  thanks to a well structured signage,  pic-nic areas and observation points, didactic panels explain the naturalistic phenomenon and the most relevant elements of this protected area.

Articolo aggiornato il 8 June 2022 da eccoLecco