Rising from our first morning, and as it happened our only morning in the tent, we packed up quickly and headed out on the trail towards breakfast. About half hour of gentle downhill led into a small charming refugio of Medalges Alm. There were just a few parties who had bunked in the neighboring buidling, which is evidnetly half for goats and half for humans.
We were welcomed by the local wildlife
We reaffirmed the notion that you can stroll into a refugio and get breakfast, but it was also becoming apparent that you couldn't expect food rapidly (even if its just stale bread, butter and jam and hot beverages). Food, and the community around it, is taken at a bit of a slower pace, and we kept having to check our American notions of service and speed and take a breath. We'd later optimize this by purchasingi sandwiches for lunch instead of stopping for all meals... a high alpine lunch that doesn't interupt the motions of the day was ideal.
2012 honeymoon vintage
2022 poorly executed imitation photo
As we left and started on the long traverse to the first objective of the day, it became obvious that... yes... we would be climing up through the loose scree full notch that we had been looking at all morning... small shady col center left of first image below, and a little more detail in following photo (Forcella dla Roa).
beautiful morning walk towards Furcella dla Roa
Nicole helping to frame up the scale of this scenery
Traversing for days
Fairly close to the foot of the climb up the scree we were passed by a couple of fast moving parties who were doing the Dream Trail - Munich to Venice. The Alta Via2 in the Dolomites makes up a large portion of this trail through Northern Italy. I couldn't imagine walking all the way along the train route we had done out of Munich... but maybe it is a nice mix of flat land valley walking and high alpine. We certainly didn't have that much time though! They had previuosly raucously greeted us from afar, assuming we were trekkers they had previously crossed paths with. This reminded us of the commraderie that can be found on these long distance trails. We chatted briefly before they tackled the climb, helped give some scale to the landscape for the next hour or so, and disappeared way up ahead.
Some gorgeous light, trail marker, and a slighly sandbagged notion of the climb
As anticipated, once at the foot of the climb, it really wasn't that bad at all - the footing was fairly solid for the most part, and as long as you didn't have a selfie stick or leaned really poorly in the wrong direction, you weren't sliding down the slope. We'd find much more serious terrain intersperced throughout the rest fo the trip, though. The overall route isn't for the faint of heart of those who fear heights!
At the top of the climb, we regrouped with several parties and pointed at maps and bits of rock in the distance. From what I could tell there was only one way through the next section, and that was our first via ferrata section. I had hacked together a climber's minimalist version of a via ferrata setup with our alpine harnesses, double slings and two aluminum non-lockers. It seemed sufficient for a trip where gear was listed as optional by most. We found it was adequate for our taste of adventure and responsibility as parents.
Nicole leading up the first bit of "climbing" on the trip.
Almost to the top!
Topping out on the moon. Image editing choices aside, it did feel very different topping out here!
We had tackled the via ferrata section solo, and the hiking at the top featured huge expansive vistas and huge visibility. We didn't see many people and felt alone up in the alpine. It was goregous!
We made our way eventually to Rifugio Puez, which was an amazing setting. All supplies are helicoptered up, and as was typical, the rifugio was run by a family and what seemed to be close friends. The older gentleman working the outdoor tables here was doing half comedy routine, half food/drink slinging. It was a lot of fun! The bean soup here was amazing, and once fueled up, we pushed onto our hike. We didn't really understand at all which parts of the trail were heavily used, and which were more remote... but we didn't need to wonder for long on this section. A lift that bumps hikers up to the top of Paso Gardena allowed dayhikes to Rifugio Puez to be a very popular day trip. We hiked through a very crowded trail the rest of the day.
The hot dusty trail, still unresolved jet lag, tired legs and my ambitious route planning collided at the end of this day, and we regrouped at Rifugio Jimmy at the pass to hydrate (beer and/or water) and make some new plans. 15 miles and 5,000ft gain days were too much given the terrain on these trails, and we settled down on a new plan centered around 10 miles, found a blog with better trip descriptions, and navigated the busses downhill to a hotel and pizza. We'd bus around to Passo San Pelligrino in the morning to pick the trail back up.
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