La Via di Téit

The Bec Moler quarry, used as a silica quarry for the Vernante glassworks, was cultivated until the 1960s, when it was abandoned in favor of more profitable quarries in the municipality of Robilante. The main access gallery is still passable and allows you to observe the quarry from above.
Before mining began, the millstones (or grindstones) for the mills were obtained from the Bec Moler, a fact which explains the toponym of the mountain. With a bit of attention it is still possible to observe on the rocky walls the circular carvings from which the millstones were extracted. The extraction was not always successful, as evidenced by a millstone which broke during the extraction phase and is still partly attached to the parent rock.

The story speaks of a clash that took place on 8 August 1794 in this locality, then known as Pianot dell'Arp. The French troops, under the command of General Bonnau, descended into the valley from Colle Arpiola and from the Passo del Bec Baral, and fought with the Austro-Piedmontese troops under the command of General Audezeno. The Piedmontese retreated as far as the slopes of Monte Sapè, then, helped by the local population, repulsed the assault.
Two (perhaps three) crosses are engraved on the rocks that emerge from the ground here in memory of the fifteen soldiers who lost their lives and were buried here.

Typical of valleys lacking schistose rocks, that is easily split into slabs (lose), the roofing in rye straw was particularly widespread in all the Monregalese valleys, in Val Vermenagna and in Valle Stura. The stems were grouped in bundles and fixed to the roof framework to create fairly durable and highly insulating covers. The pitches of the roof were much more sloping than those of the roofs made of slate, since the light framework could not have supported the weight of large accumulations of snow.

At the bottom of the valley is the perennial snowfield at the lowest altitude of all the Maritime and Ligurian Alps, fed by the numerous avalanches that descend along the watersheds of the Vallone di Pioccia. In past times it was a source of supply for blocks of ice which, transported downstream, were used in the cold rooms.