BALTEO

Balteo is the name of the large glacier existing in the Aosta Valley at the end of the last glaciation, from which the river that crosses this region of north-west Italy takes its name. The image cover is a hand made garden glacier.

This is a descent starting from the altitude of the glaciers and peaks of the Alps, descending into the side valleys to converge in the central valley of the Aosta Valley, a landscape sculpted and pressed into and onto the rock, where during the last glacial era it hosted the large Blateo glacier from which the main river of the northwest Italy region takes its name. The thickness of the old glacier reached 1000m.

We descend the rocky walls covering a negative altitude difference of more than 3500m, where the landscape changes from icy to a subalpine climate.

be able to imagine the great Balteo Glacier which extended for 116 km from Mont Blanc to Mazzè (TO) one thousand meters high

it progressed slowly, bringing with it debris and smoothing the central valley, which it hosts

most of the inhabitants of the Aosta Valley.

The Great Balteo Glacier is no longer there, but i we can find traces of its passage, wild and anthropized places.

We begin the descent from the highest glaciers of the Valle D'Aosta proceeding towards the south-east. Here In the last two million years several glacial phases have occurred,

during which the glaciers increased in size and progressed

downstream, alternating with as many interglacial phases of regression

characterized by a warmer climate.It dates back to about 150,000 years ago one of the greatest expansions of the Balkan glacier that along the valley axis of Valle D'Aosta welcomed the languages of the side valleys and the Canavese plain going to form the great morainic amphitheater of Ivrea

extending over 500 square kilometres.

Daily we live immersed in a huge bobsleigh track with rock walls and trees,

our horizon begins very high, and if this sometimes seems stifling others could not physically do without,

a feeling of protection and maybe closure that never makes us forget how imperceptible we are in size compared to our container.