The Bivacco Suretta is a slightly peeling little red box standing guard over the Suretta Glacier, an ancient body of ice condemned to a slow death. The summer path to reach it has no particularly interesting scenery along the way, and the sight of the shrunken glacier brings more dismay than pleasure. It can be worth including this destination in a wider loop that takes in a few more natural beauties.
The loop suggested here, starting from Montespluga, brings us to the Bivacco Suretta only after taking us along the historic routes of the Passo dello Spluga and to the splendid Laghi Azzurri. So we lace up our boots at Montespluga (m1908) and start climbing through meadows towards the Passo dello Spluga, keeping to the western side of the valley. After about twenty minutes we cross the SS36 near the Casa Cantoniera (m2065) to walk up to the pass on the 17th-century line of the Via Spluga: where we find two paved tracks converging, the steeper one is from the 17th century, while the less steep one is an 18th-century rebuild.
Other stretches of original paving can be walked on the Swiss side of the Spluga. We, however, having reached the Passo dello Spluga (m2113, 40 minutes), take the narrow path that climbs the grassy ridge on the right with thousands of geometric hairpins. In under forty minutes we reach the Bergsee (m2310, 40 minutes), a large, perfectly circular pool of water set on a panoramic balcony above the winding Spluga road.
In a handful of minutes we are at the Laghi Azzurri (m2445, 20 minutes). The route to the Bivacco Suretta, still long, continues east through a graveyard of huge boulders that came from who knows where. The path is almost non-existent, so we are constantly searching for a good way through boulders and scree. Next comes a level traverse cutting across a steep rocky slope, with a few fixed ropes and a metal ladder. We then take a small moraine crest that soon brings us to the modest snout of the Suretta Glacier, from where we can decide to climb to the Bivacco Suretta (m2748, 1.30 hours), perched on top of a rocky dome facing the glacier. The view over the Val Loga, the Lago di Montespluga and the Valle Spluga is remarkable.
We descend by the bivouac's summer path: we go back down the scree off the dome, then into the valley carved out by the glacier until we reach a rubble-strewn flat; here the path turns west and descends diagonally across a steep grassy slope, passing at the foot of a rock outcrop. After this short stretch, the path descends more easily along a fine grassy spur, heading straight for the Lago di Montespluga. Lower down we walk through enchanting meadows, scattered with boulders and rhododendron bushes and cheered by the rustle of a stream. At the end we have to walk the 2 kilometres of main road that separate us from Montespluga (m1908, 2 hours), where we left the car.
