Tour to the lake Lago Pian Palù and the charcoal kilns of the valley Val di Peio

A round tour with some fascinating landscape views, which goes along the lake Lago Pian Palù, a man-made reservoir built in the 1950s for hydroelectric purposes, with its emerald-coloured surface to take us to the five-hundred-year-old larch trees below the mountain farm Malga Paludèi and to the charcoal-kilns between the mountain farms Malga Paludèi and Malga Giumella. This is one of four “Sentieri Dendrocronologici del Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio” (dendrochronological paths of the Park Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio) in the valleys Val di Rabbi and Val di Peio. Dendrochronology deals with the dating of annual tree rings in order to determine their ages. During the 15th and 16th centuries some vast woodland areas in the valley Val di Peio were cut to provide the smelting furnaces of the local iron industry with the necessary charcoal. The dendrochronological analysis of charcoal pieces excavated from Pian Palù kilns confirms a second woodland cut to produce charcoal during the years 1858/59.