The nature reserve of the Orrido di Foresto lies between the municipalities of Bussoleno and Susa, on the south-facing side of the Susa valley, and was established in 1980. It covers about 180 hectares between 450 and 950 metres. The name comes from the gorge: in the limestone rock the Rocciamelone torrent has cut, before reaching the valley floor, a ravine with overhanging walls that here is called an Orrido. Together with the nearby Orrido di Chianocco it forms part of the site of the xerothermic oases of the Susa valley.
What to see
Besides the gorge, the reserve takes in the limestone cliffs around it and the poor pastures that clothe the valley side at low altitude: dry grassland, not mountain meadow. It is a hot, dry environment, with little rain, relatively high temperatures and few frosts, and that combination is the reason for everything else.
Visiting
The reserve was created to protect a plant: the prickly juniper, a population extremely rare for Piedmont. It is a species that today grows on the coasts of the Mediterranean, and it reached here between seven thousand and five thousand years ago, when swings in the climate extended the Mediterranean environment over broad stretches of the Alpine chain. Then the climate cooled again, and these junipers were left trapped in the warm, dry microenvironment of the valley. There are several dozen of them, clustering in the limestone basin north of the small settlement of Crotte. Alongside them grow many orchids and other species of steppic or Mediterranean origin.
Our editors' tip
It is worth coming up knowing what you are looking at: those junipers were not planted, they are the descendants of a population that has been here since before the pyramids and that survived because this piece of hillside never cooled quite enough. A xerothermic oasis is exactly that, a fragment of ancient climate left wedged among the mountains. Birds of prey are often seen on the cliffs, and among the mammals there are foxes, badgers, wild boar, roe deer and the occasional chamois.