AVU Alta Via dei Lupi | Stage 7 San Giacomo di Entracque - Ellena-Soria refuge

From San Giacomo di Entracque, just beyond the Park's hiking refuge, the road (M11 trail sign) becomes a dirt road and begins to climb the Vallone della Barra in a beautiful beech grove. The beech trees thin out quickly and the landscape takes on the appearance of rich pastures dotted with sparse shrubs. Leaving Gias Isterpis on the left, continue on the comfortable dirt road at the bottom of the valley. You pass the so-called Piazzale dei Cannoni and, a little further on, ignore the grassy dirt road on the left that goes down to the Gias della Siula.At the next hairpin bend to the right, a track that branches off to the left and rejoins the dirt road further upstream allows you to shorten the route. Around an altitude of 1650, at the base of the rocky cliff known as Passage of Peirastretta, another small path on the left, quite evident, avoids some bends of the dirt road before rejoining it. After the crossroads on the right for Colle di Fenestrelle (M10 trail sign) which you leave aside, the dirt road ends up crossing the Gesso della Barra torrent. On foot, however, you cross the stream on the wooden footbridge located on the left a few meters before the ford.Immediately beyond the walkway there is a crossroads, again to the left, with the steep but short path that goes directly up to the refuge. The dirt road, however, extends towards the S in the large pasture basin of the Piano del Praiet until it meets a branch of the stream again, right at the crossroads on the right for Colle di Finestra (trail sign M11) and for Pera de Fener (trail sign M18 ). The road crosses the stream and, now turning north, reaches the hill on which the Soria Refuge stands