The adventure begins with a lift ride. Not cheating. That’s what the guides said to do. In fact we went past are hiking starting point and road two cable cars up to the top of Tefano Mezze. The second cable car was installed for the Olympics in 1956. A classic!
The views up top were fabulous with a striking vantage point of Cortina way below and the mountains surrounding it. We also had a view out to Marmolada, the Sella, and the Geisler group again.
Rode back down to Col Druscie where we began our hike. We had great Mountain View’s but the trail was not the best. Seemed like we climbed vertically up talus flows or hiked on gravel roads with occasional cars going by. Not the bucolic scene we were thinking of. We stopped at the first Refugio, Duca d Acosta, for a Coke then onward and upward to the second Refugio on our trail, Refugio Angelo Dibona where we had lunch and a beer. Katie had onion soup and I had Tofanellini with blueberries and speck. Surprisingly good.
From there we knew the trail was up. An hour and a half and 2000 feet elevation gain later we reached our final Refugio, Giussani.
Basically it sits at the top of a pass. They do have toilets, beer, Aperol Spritzes but no showers or electricity in the rooms.
Our room sleeps 9 in bunk beds and 1 solo. I got the solo. Bathroom across the hall. No sink. Beautiful views coming up. Looks like the moon according to Katie.
We did see a family of Chamois on the way up.
At the top, Aperol Spritzes and beers on the deck then dinner. Katie had a bean soup as her primi. I had spaghetti ragu which was actually a tube pasta but good. Our secondi was sausage and fried potatoes for both of us. Strudel for desert. All in all filling for so isolated up on the mountain. Now time for bed though it is only 9. Ok sleep despite a room of 9 people. No big snorers. Up for breakfast at 7 which was jellies, Nutella, and a slice of cheese. Coffee was good! We set out at 8. Pretty much straight down hill. Talus fields so lots of loose footing then cliff drop offs.
Some parts were even getting a little technical with cables and washed out trails leaving scary vertical descents.
We went 2.93 miles down, from 8900’ down to 6078’ at the river crossing. Not particularly great views on the way down, mostly moonscape. The trail going up was pretty good wandering thru trees and alpine valleys until we entered the moonscape again. Zig zag up the hill. We did pass WWI tunnels and bunkers, lookout posts carved into the cliffs. It was the Austrians vs the Italians here. Brutal living conditions. Brutal hiking conditions.
I was stopping every 50 yards. We finally made it to the top, now at 9018 feet. Total trip was 5 hours and 20 minutes but way too much down and way way too much up. We had large Forst beers then a Laguinitas IPA with fries. Spectacular views at this Refugio Lagazoui.
We could have hiked down to Passo Falzarego but our guides said take the cable car down! We did that. Short hike to our Refugio Col Gallina where they had showers and our room is only 5 people. On the deck with an Aperol Spritz after showers and our mood is getting better. There is talk of an orange storm warning tomorrow. We have a 17 km hike on our schedule so we will see how bad it is.
After a pretty good sleep and significant rain during the night we ate a pretty good breakfast and decided to at least try part of the hike.
We met some drizzle early on but then just cloudy. No further rain. No thunder. No lightning. So we hiked and hiked. Some of the trails were crazy up. Basically bouldering up a chute 10-15 feet wide.
We had some downhill sections that were like that as well but more scary going down. With the previous rain, things were slippery. After 4 hours we made it to Passo Giau, a pass we had driven over coming into Cortina. We had our usual beer and fries then waited to see if the skies would open up and roar. We didn’t want to hike over 2 more passes if there was lightning about. But no. All stayed calm so off we went. The trail lulled us with some modest inclines in open meadows. We did get to see quite a few Marmots and sometimes the clouds would lift a bit giving us very pretty views of the surrounding peaks. We hiked up and down for the next 3 hours eventually making it to Refugio Croda da Lago.
Beautiful site though inside was very cramped quarters. I have never seen a shower so small. My legs were cramping trying to get out of my pants in such a small place. Tomorrow we have a choice of two trails. One backtracks uphill the way we came from. The other is pretty much downhill back to Cortina. We are heading downhill to Cortina. Katie is already planning out the spa visit. So the hike today was 6 1/2 hours. 11.3 miles. 3481 vertical feet. We are pooped. A night with 7 people in a room much smaller than my bedroom. We did sleep reasonably well with the window open and ear plugs in. I woke up about 2 am worried about fire having seen the wall of electronic items charging just outside of our room. After some muesli and coffee we set off downhill to Cortina. Some parts of the trail were good but others were quite vertical and slippery between the mud and the tree roots.
We stopped for a cappuccino at Refugio Laga d Ajal. They were booming country music out over their deck.
We continued down and eventually made it to Cortina, taking 3 hours and forty minutes for 6.9 miles some 2800 feet down.
No bruised butts or broken ankles and though there has been a yellow warning all day for rain and thunderstorms. No rain on us! Currently waiting to check into our hotel room. We put all our dirty clothes together but struck out on the two laundry services in town. Another day we’ll get that done.
Ciao!