Monte Tamaro

August 21, 2025

1963m

Lugano, Switzerland

M. Tamaro boasts over 1400 m prominence in the Lugano region of Switzerland. This is one part of the country that sort of like a peninsula sticking into Italy, so the language of speaking is mostly Italian instead of German. The area around Lugano is also famous for the numerous lakes and tourism but this peak is not often visited by the tourists. The standard route follows a trail from Passo dell’Alpe di Neggia and gains over 500 m elevation. For day-hike this is considered very short but it’s not a “freebie”. Adam noticed this objective while browsing the maps and I checked the weather forecast which confirmed that we would indeed have a few hours of window in the morning. The window was not promising enough for an “Ultra” but a P1400m “Ribu” would be a nice substitution.

The pass can be accessed from either the north or the south and I simply consulted with Google Map for the driving direction. Our previous objective was M. Torrezzo and from there, Google directed us through the city of Lugano to the north side of the mountain. The weather had been horrible with torrential amount of rain, such that the driving at night was actually the crux of this outing. Without years of experience in Vancouver I doubt I would be able to pull that off. The paved road heading west from Quartino was also in a terrible shape with numerous dangerous pot-holes. I hit at least one of them hard but didn’t make any visible damage to the vehicle. We then drove up the never-ending switchbacks to near the pass and settled at one of the pull-outs. The pissing hadn’t stopped so we unfortunately had to pitch the tents in the rain. That was miserable but I assured Adam that we might as well treat this as a practice for Alaska or somewhere up north when it’s raining 300 days a year. The rained stopped overnight but our gears were soaked.

Monte Tamaro from Alpe di Neggia. GPX DL

The weather was actually better than expected, such that we could see fair amount of peaks from the trail-head so our stoke level was quite high. Adam led a blistering pace up the trail so all I needed was to put one foot in front of another to keep up with the pace. The lower part of the trail traverses through the thinning forest whereas the upper section involves some scrambling steps. There were chains as usual, but no proper via ferrata climbing. The ascent was slightly longer than expected but we still got to the summit in a timely manner. We could see Monte Rosa to the far west which had been coated by a layer of fresh snow, but the nearby peaks stayed reasonably dry.

The start of the route was through some farming fields

The trail traverses beside some houses on the lower flanks

Looking down towards the north end of Lake Maggiore

Adam plodding up the trail with the summit in the distance

The trail does traverse some steeper flanks

A closer look at Gridone / M. Limidario which has 1200+ m prominence

Ul Mött Tund / Motto Rotondo which is basically the east peak of Monte Tamaro

The “ultra” Grigna Settentrionale with Grigna Meridionale to the right

Monte Generoso rises behind Lago di Lugano

The main body of Lake Maggiore to the SW

Basòdino to the far NW which is over 3200 m high

Another picture of me on the summit of Monte Tamaro

After updating our socials and peakbagger app we immediately started the descent. There was still warning for thunderstorms for the rest of the day but again, the weather was better than expected so we had to do another peak. Adam was more keen on “Ribus” but there wasn’t anything easy/short nearby. Instead I suggested we should do the popular P600m M. San Salvatore even just for the views.