Lago delle Scale
Lago delle Scale
Between the Towers of Fraele and the reservoirs of Cancano, a lake that has been fished for centuries. A mirror of water suspended between sky and earth, a paradise for sport fishing.
Lake Scale, also known as Lago di Fraele, is the only natural lake in the valley of the same name: set in a basin that runs north-east to south-west between the Platòr peaks and Monte delle Scale, not far from the Towers of Fraele. It has no inflow or outflow, fed entirely by underground springs, and its clear water covers some 53,000 m². It once belonged to the noble Alberti family of Bormio, who farmed its fish for the weeks of Lent. Still privately owned today, it offers rare conditions for trout to spawn naturally. Here the fish are not only stocked, they reproduce.
Three salmonids share these waters, some stocked, some spawned in the lake's cold springs.
Permits are sold at our office in Isolaccia (Domus Immobili) or online. If you can’t reach the office, call us: we’ll send your permit by email or WhatsApp, with the IBAN for bank transfer.
Private property: access reserved to permit-holding anglers. No bikes, no dogs, no swimming.
Check the water and the weather before you set out. The live view updates straight from the shore.
Lake Scale lies in Val Fraele, a short way from the Towers and before the Cancano reservoirs, just beyond Bormio, in the Valtellina (Lombardy).
They tell of a demon that could change shape without changing nature: the Black Angel, who appeared among the smoke of the iron forges, and Ravan, a ten-headed monster that made the mountains tremble. When the Christian farmers blessed their people and beasts with water from the lake, only then would the Angel cover his face and dissolve into the peaks.
The brotherhoods of Molina and Premadio, in white robes and red cloaks, argued over which monstrous egg had hatched him. On one thing they agreed: angel or monster, he commanded all those who, along the path of the Scale, spread terror through the Val Fraele.
They also tell of Talp, who drove his pack mules up from Pian del Vino to the lake. One day his donkey slipped its load and went down to drink at the shore; from the water a sudden whirlpool rose and swallowed it whole. That beast, they say, was the return of a little donkey once mistreated and left without food or water. And like the lake’s springs, with no stream flowing in or out, where it vanished remains a mystery.
Long before the permits and the fly rods, the Val Fraele was already a place people travelled to.
