Cingino Dam, Gravity dam in Antrona Schieranco, Italy.
Cingino Dam is a gravity masonry dam built from rubble stone, standing about 7 km southwest of Antrona Schieranco in the Valle Antrona, Piedmont. It holds back Lago Cingino, a reservoir of 0.14 km² fed by the Antigine and Troncone streams and lying at roughly 2,250 m above sea level. The reservoir is one of five in the valley's hydroelectric complex and supplies water to the Campliccioli Power Plant.
The dam was completed in the late 1920s and forms part of a larger system of reservoirs throughout Valle Antrona designed for power generation. Its construction was part of the region's broader hydroelectric development during that era.
The dam's fame comes from a BBC video narrated by Brian Cox, viewed over 208 million times by May 2022, which shows Alpine ibex climbing the downstream face to lick salt from the stones. The animals return for the salt, and the footage turned an otherwise unremarkable structure into a known site.
The site sits in remote mountain terrain and is best reached on foot via hiking trails that climb from Antrona Schieranco. Visitors should prepare for changing mountain weather conditions and expect uneven ground.
The dam drew global attention after the BBC series Forces of Nature with Brian Cox shared footage of the climbing ibex; by May 2022 that video had been viewed over 208 million times. Atlas Obscura, while noting the mountain setting, calls the dam otherwise unremarkable.
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