From Piazza Chanoux, the good living room of Aosta, the gaze rises quickly. It's natural to raise your head and figure out how far the mountains go. Sit, perhaps, in an armchair of the dehors of some cafes in the most important square of the city, in front of your eyes you can see the tip of the Becca di Nona, the top overlooking the capital of the Region.
It is the mountain of Aosta and next July 15, a Midsummer Sunday, they will climb it – it is said, because the steep high mountain path is passable by walking and running – almost a thousand skyrunners, the sky riders. That they will drink their coffee, if they want, before they leave for the ascent. Because the Becca di Nona 3142 starts from the center of the city and, after only one and a half kilometers of plain begins to make the athletes watch the race with their noses up. The Aosta-Becca di Nona was born in 2002 and initially involves both the climb and the descent.
Massimo Farcoz, 2016 winner
The big names of skyrunning win it: from Bruno Brunod, Valdostano of Chatillon, to the Catalan Kilian Jornet, the icon of outdoor endurance sports who, as a child, in the bedroom, hung on the wall had a poster of Brunod. It is the story that repeats itself, as well as that of Becca. The race was suspended in 2012 and reorganized, and only uphill, in 2016, every two years. And with another spirit: not only more competitive but also, and above all, goliardic and enjoy.
Because alongside the pure agonists (who remain, massimo farcoz won the 2016 edition in just under two hours) the new users of the climb to Becca are amateurs who want to get to the top to accomplish a small business or who want to measure themselves in the Montée des Gourmands, a "slightly more demanding walk" – as the organizers call it – with arrival at 2100 in the Comboé valley (shortly after halfway through , about, of the climb to Becca that ends at an altitude of 3142 meters above sea level) and the presence, every 300 meters of altitude difference, of gastronomic points with the distribution of products of the Region and cheered by the music of folk groups and traditions.
