Beautiful views continued in the morning
The climb out of Riffugio Mulaz started with a loose scree field assisted by logs driven, mostly securely, into the hillside with rebar, and ocassionally cables from secure outcropings above. Despite the sketchniess of this appearance, this initial climb went smoothly. A long high traverse led us up to the bottom of the climb up to Passo delle Farangole - including one of the more airy via ferrata sections on the route.
Looking back down to Passo Mulaz from below Passo delle Farangole
Nicole above the most exposed part - a few moves of actual climbing thrown in there (if you skip the ladder rungs)
Nicole topping out the via ferrata below the proper Passo delle Farangole
After topping out on the pass, the descent is technically more straightforward, but plenty loose. A few cable sections takes you down a narrow rock chute (fill in with snow and bring your skis!?) before the terrain opens up. The slope doesn't immediately ease, however, and the steep loose trail keeps boming down the hillside, eventually leveling out in grassy terraces high above the Valle di Garé.
Nicole looking down the descent
Off the cables, onto the scree!
Clouds rolled in a bit, but stayed up high all day.
Nicole down below giving some scale to the grand scenery
The trail on the vegetated terrace cut a high and sometimes exposed path far above the bottom of the valley. The guidebook mentioned climbing all the way down to the river, which seemed like thousands of feet below us. Which it was. Thankfully, however, as we kept hiking, dry waterfall steps stair-stepped the valley up to us much more than we dropped to it. After a few smaller via ferrata sections as steep gullys passed through the trail, we dropped down to the river and could see the last remaining climb to the (as of yet not see) Rifugio Rosetta. It was getting hot at this point, and we were quite ready to sit outside and relax, so the last climb seemed to take forever.
Nicole traversing above the Valle di Garés
Nicole traversing above the Valle di Garés
We eventually did pull up on to the moonscape around Rifugio Rosetta, and as was typical for most days in the second half of our trip, the skies decided to open up and rain and thunder about an hour after we had arrived. I think they spaced these rifugios out just right!
The rifugio! And a lift down to town (which we didn't take)
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