Chiusa di Pesio

Chiusa di Pesio sits at 575 meters at the gateway of the Valle Pesio, the wedge of the Ligurian Alps that runs fifteen kilometers from the town up to the French border. Municipal territory climbs from 575 meters at the village to over 2,600 meters at the ridge. The town exists because of the Certosa di Pesio: in 1173 the lords of Morozzo donated upper-valley lands to a Carthusian monk named Ulderich from Casale, and the charterhouse that grew on that gift became one of the great spiritual and forestry centers of medieval Piedmont.

The Carthusians left in the eighteenth century. The Missionaries of the Consolata took over the complex, which still stands at the foot of Monte Mindino. Above the Certosa, the Parco Naturale del Marguareis protects 7,900 hectares around the 2,651-meter peak, including the most important alpine karst system in Piedmont, 150 kilometers of explored caves. The first stable wolf pack documented in the Italian Alps settled here in the mid-1990s.