Sunday Jul 8 |
 | Trekking (Backpacking) 5:30:00 [2] ** | |
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| Tough decision this morning. The weather forecast for tomorrow is really nasty - 100% chance of severe storms throughout the Dolomites. The rifugio where we were booked for tonight is remote with no safe way out in the event of really bad weather - and tomorrow's trek is supposed to be 7 hours including a very long, exposed pass. Then the day after tomorrow, a taxi is scheduled to meet us at 10:30 a.m. for a long pre-paid ride back to the hotel at the start of the trek, where our extra luggage is waiting. So it would be a particularly bad time to be stuck in a remote hut. Then the icing on the cake - another trekker warned us that there are 'lots of ticks' at the 2nd rifugio we are headed for. I've been a bit obsessed about the tickborne encephalitis that is endemic to the region, so that tilted the balance toward catching an earlier train to Austria.
In the end, we decided to go for it, but try to hike three scheduled days in two, which meant that we should clear the high pass today, then hopefully get out before the nastiest weather tomorrow afternoon. This worked out perfectly, and it was actually good because our first planned Rifigio (Pramperet) was celebrating its 30th anniversary today, so there were over 100 people there, including a choir (who sang Kum Ba Ya very well!), a priest, picnicking families and the mayor, etc. Amazing, considering that everyone had to hike for at least a couple of hours from the closest road. The high pass after that was a bit hairy, since dark clouds started swirling 80% of the way up, and it was very exposed both ahead and behind. The forecast had mentioned thunderstorms, so we kept up a very good pace! After a section on a knife-edge ridge where I was almost afraid to breathe for fear of falling off with my big pack, we started a long descent - about 800 m achieved very quickly. My knees don't have much cartilage to spare, and now they have even less!
Pleasant evening at Rifugio Pian de Fontana, where we hung out with Germans and Italians all evening, feeling embarrassed that their English is so good compared to our attempts at their languages. |
Saturday Jul 7 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 5:30:00 [2] ** +950m | |
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| Long day! (Elapsed time about 8.5 hrs.) We'd been warned to start early in case of storms, since much of today's route was quite exposed on steep scree slopes. It was quiet and cool descending from Rifigio Tissi into some farmland, then continuing behind the Civetta, where we discovered dozens of climbers on the towers or coming up the road. It was Sunday, and everyone was out enjoying the mountains - people walking their dogs, mountain runners, Moms with babies, trekkers in knickers, and so on. After leaving the main trail to skirt the scree slopes, we met almost no one. There was one pass after another, then finally we could see a rifugio in the distance. Fantasizing about cold beer on a hot day, we hurried for the next hour only to find that it was closed for renovations. Right after that, we made our one nav error of the trip, following a trail downhill for 20 minutes before realizing that we needed to come back up and take another one - sigh. The good news was that our Rifugio San Sebastiano sold ice cream!! So our long hike had a very nice finish. |
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| C • Fun 4 |
Friday Jul 6 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 3:15:00 [2] ** | |
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| Perfect weather today, all day - finally! It was a day of climbing from malgas (farms) and ski areas up to the high rock towers and sheer faces of Mt. Civetta. Lots of switchbacks in the hot sun and lots of wishing that I hadn't packed quite so much gear. (Actually, 'Bent is being a true gentleman by carrying all the books I brought to read, so I can't complain much.) We had cappucino at Rifugio Coldai, then continued around behind Civetta to a pass where we could see our destination, Rifugio Tissi, impossibly perched on a steep green slope in the distance - well above us at that point and sitting close to the edge of a 1300 m drop. We arrived early in the afternoon, which had been the plan since it would have been impossible to get up there in the thunderstorms that often happen in late afternoon. So we had lots of time to look at the stunning face of Civetta, other mountains in the distance in a 360 degree panorama, and the village of Alleghe 1300 m below us. (No guard rails, of course!) When the sun started to set, the pink-orange-red alpenglow on the Civetta was incredible. I took over 100 photos today - good thing it's so easy to delete digital pics.
Cultural Note #1: Cell phones everywhere, ringing at high mountain passes and in remote rigufios. Around here, getting into the mountains does not equate to getting away from it all. I think most people I know would purposely turn off their cell phones in such places, even if they could get reception - which we normally wouldn't have on mountain tops at home.
Note #2: After some language issues, one of the dinner choices was described as 'Tagliatelle Bambi'! |
Thursday Jul 5 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 4:15:00 [2] ** | |
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| Took a taxi from Cortina back to Paso Giau to rejoin our trekking route. We had some fantastic weather today - interspersed with occasional 10-minute bursts of hail blowing sideways, pelting rain, high winds, etc. Most of the time we had excellent views, which we'd been missing in the last few days of bad weather. We were in some exposed places today, and it was nice to be able to enjoy them, rather than rushing through. We stopped at Rifugio Citta di Fiume an hour before the end of the day, and watched large groups of schoolchildren having organized fun - tug of war, foot races, group photos, etc. With such a stunning mountain backdrop, it really looked like the dream school trip!
In spite of my plan to start eating less today, I had to put it off for yet another day, because the food at our Rifugio Staulanza was the best we've had so far in Italy! That's saying a lot, because the food has been excellent everywhere here. And the wine is cheaper than the Coca Cola. Our rifugio host was Marco Salo, an Italian mountaineer who has climbed K2, Cho Oyu, Shishapangma and a bunch of other peaks. Must read about him when we get home. We made our first attempt at watching Italian TV - a fencing match and a game show where the contestant has to match a line-up of people to their professions. Any shows more complex than that would have required a command of Italian, so the pickings for us were rather slim! |
Wednesday Jul 4 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 1:15:00 [2] | |
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| Hiked from Cinque Torri to Passo Giau to meet a taxi for a planned day in Cortina d'Ampezzo, a ski town that was the site of the 1956 Olympics. Weather was extremely nasty, with high wind and hail. I had the best hot chocolate I've ever had at Passo Giau as we waited for the taxi.
If I had to choose only one food ethnicity to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Italian - but I might be getting too much of a good thing. After a final splurge during our day in Cortina, I'm going to have to go on a diet! (And that's while I'm carrying a pack for 5-6 hrs a day.)
No more Internet until next week. Ciao! |
Tuesday Jul 3 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 5:00:00 [2] | |
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| Another morning that started with a steep climb to a plateau. Once we were up there, we continued climbing at a more gentle rate, but we barely noticed it because it got so interesting! Today we were hiking along part of the Italian-German front line from World War I, and there is still a lot to look at. There are some areas on these high plateaus that have been declared an Open Air Museum by the EU, and in a few places there are signs explaining what we were looking at. After we'd ascended to almost 2800 m (with me gasping for oxygen), we had the option of descending the other side of the mountain through a very steep Galleria (tunnel) built by the Italians in an attempt to blow the Austrians off the top of the mountain. It was a bit of a hairy, high-altitude walk with a pack to get to the entrance to the tunnel, and it was a good 90 minutes until we came out the bottom. Very, very cool. We needed headlamps, and most of the time we were descending in pools of water on rock steps. There were occasional openings to the outside where the Italians would dump rock waste at night when the Austrians couldn't see. There were officers' quarters and bunkrooms for the enlisted men who lived and worked in there. We saw engine rooms and ruined compressors and lots of other remnants of this amazing chapter in history.
A very cool afternoon - and it made up for the fact that we missed most of the famed panoramic view at the mountain top because it was cloudy again. Naturally, we had another big climb to finish our day, arriving at Rifigio Cinque Torri. We tried their hot wine, then went for a hike to see a 300 m long restored Italian trench nearby. I decided that in future, I will never drink and hike! But it was interesting anyway, even if I wasn't so good with my footing. |
Monday Jul 2 |
| Trekking (Backpacking) 4:15:00 [2] | |
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| We left Rifugio Fodara Vedla and descended a narrow World War I era road that may be the steepest road I've ever seen. Lots of switchbacks, and we slipped more than a few times in our hiking boots. A few vehicles still use this road, and probably the cattle in the alpine pasture do too - hard to believe. Then, of course, it was time to climb wa-a-ay back up to Rifugio Fanes for lunch. We saw more than a dozen mountain bikers ascending the old road that parallelled our trail. Looks like it might be fun - but LOTS of climbing. Then we had a beautiful half-afternoon on a high plateau between beautiful jagged peaks - and then the thunderstorm hit. We are carrying metal hiking sticks amongst other things, so we decided to put everything down and step away from the packs until the worst was over. I guess that will teach us to linger over lunch. We'd been told that mid-afternoon thunderstorms are common here. After a hair-raising descent along a cliff face as the lightning began, our day finally finished with a big climb to Rifugio Scotone. We were totally drenched and had to turn our little room into a mess of clotheslines draped with dripping clothes. Hope we see more of the mountains (and less of the clouds) tomorrow! |