2022Janus2023

     I look back over my 2022 calendar, and everything seems so long ago! Was it only nine months ago that I was skiing in Alaska? Only since June that I had COVID on a river cruise in France? Only three months ago that I hiked the Dolomites? Has Russia been sowing destruction in Ukraine for less that a year? It seems like it has been forever! Is it like that every year? Or is there something about the passage of time as one ages that makes time pass differently?

Time Changes (A Nonet)

Time changes, as one ages, from breeze to whirlwind.

The grandchild you played with suddenly teen-age different.

Childhood memories stay fresh, undisturbed by maelstroms

While time's windstorms destroy yesterday's memories.

The years collapse into days

Brief as dandelion puffs

Caught by wind

Gone into

Time

One-footed

    It is now two weeks after my foot surgery. Two down, ten to go! 

    I spent the first few days at the home of my podiatrist, who is a friend I have skied with for years. How lucky could I get? I was in good hands for those crucial few days!

    Then my son drove down from Washington to help me transition to one-footed life at my house. He rearranged furniture, figured out the shower, and did a hundred other things to make it easier for me to hop through the house on a walker. (The bandaged foot was strictly non-weight-bearing.) He replaced the damaged bathroom sink, unclogged the kitchen sink, and brought a fir tree in from the woods, set it up, and strung it with lights so I could decorate it. (The ornaments hang only as high as the branches I could reach from a chair.) Before he left for home, he chopped kindling and filled my wood bin. 

    So I am doing fine. I have even kind of enjoyed the challenge of figuring things out—how to build a fire in the stove, how to sweep the floor from a chair. Friends have rallied to my cause. They have come to visit, brought dinners, picked up my groceries, read poetry with me, and brought wine. 

    Yesterday a friend drove me to my doctor's appointment. The doctor was so pleased the X-rays and the look of the foot that he has allowed me to walk in a boot that keeps my toes off the ground!

My heel responded with a surprised twinge when it touched the floor for the first time. 

    It is thrilling to be one step closer to the end of the twelve-week process. Maybe even, at my next doctor's appointment a month from now, I'll be allowed to drive.

    All this time I have been acutely aware of the three people I know who have had a leg amputated. At some point my doctor is going to say, "Excellent. Good job. Walk, ski, hike—you have your foot back." For my three friends, there was no going back. I am filled with admiration for their fortitude, and respect for the difficulties they have faced—and gratitude that my condition is temporary and that I have so many friends who have stepped in to help. 

    I move towards the New Year with that gratitude foremost, wishing for you the same fulfilling emotion and that you and all people, creatures, and plants of the world will know and happiness.

They

     Pronouns are tricky. All my English-teacher life I tried to get students to understand that "they" is plural and "everyone," for instance, is singular, that it is incorrect to say, "Everyone hung up their hat." Correct usage when I  was in college was, "Everyone hung up his hat," but the women's movement made it clear that that wiped out half the population with one pronoun. So then we said, "Everyone hung up his or her hat," which is awkward, so everyone went on using "their" in the singular, anyway, saying, "Everyone hung up their hat" without thinking about it. (Wikipedia tells me that this possessive form of "they" has been used since the fourteenth century. I should have known that while I was teaching English! I wouldn't have tried so hard.)

    In today's language a new use of the third-person plural pronoun (they, them, their) has been introduced. Some people who fit into neither the male nor the female box ask to be referred to as "they," in the singular. English teachers wail and other people rebel, but I find this a reasonable way to make language fit reality.

    Besides the half-accepted use of "they" with a singular antecedent illustrated above, there is another precedent for using a once-plural-only pronoun in the singular. "You" used to be a plural pronoun. "Thee," "thou," and "thine" were the singular forms. Gradually—or suddenly, as far as I know—that usage fell out of favor. No doubt English teachers wailed and other people rebelled, but today we easily say, "You are going with me," whether there are fifteen people going or only one.

    I admit it's hard to adjust to, but I like this new use of "they." It's a good solution to a real problem. And we'll get used to it. We'll even be able to say, "They can get it theirself" in the right context. We don't blink an eye when someone asks us for something and we say, "I'd be glad to, but you can get it yourself." Language changes, and I, for one, am proud to see English accommodating itself to another population that has in the past been wiped out by a pronoun.

     

Doing Away with Hallux Rigidus

     I have put away my hiking boots, and it's not because it's ski season, because I've put away my ski boots, too, and it's not because there's no snow. My favorite outdoor activities will be curtailed for a while as I carefully nurse my right foot back to pre-surgery—and I mean way pre-surgery—normality. I hope what I mean is back to what the foot was like before the hallux rigidus that set in forty years ago and finally drove me to surgery.

    Hallux rigidus means a "rigid big toe," and what that means is that the big toe joint doesn't bend (it's an arthritic condition), but, of course, in even normal walking and especially in skiing and hiking, the big toe wants to bend. But trying to bend hurts. How badly it can hurt can be ascertained from my blog post on the last day of hiking the Dolomites last September, where a 7,700-foot descent in a nine-and-a-half-hour day was causing a great deal of pain. My podiatrist friend, Monika, recommended surgery. "Diana," she said. "No more pain."

    The surgeon demurred. He said he wouldn't guarantee no more pain but that he would guarantee less pain, which sounded pretty good to me.

    Of course, at the moment, with surgery only two days behind me, I am in more, and more constant, pain, but that'll go away. I am staying with Monika for the first few days after surgery.

(What good luck that my podiatrist is a friend!) Tomorrow my son will come down from Washington to take me home and help me adjust to one-footed living at my mountain home. The doctor has fused the big toe of my right foot and put in a pin, so I am to be non-weight-bearing on that foot till the doctor tells me I can do otherwise. He says that recovery is generally twelve weeks. 

    All right, then—skiing on March 8. And then the hiking, and I am predicting a lot less pain. And if that's true, it'll be worth it to go through it all again on the left foot. 

Prayers in gratitude

May the apple limbs hang low with rosy-checked apples.
May the geese have joy in their journey and solace at its end.

May the snow fly thick.

May the springs flow full and the rivers run free.

May the earth forgive our trespasses against it.

May we give the earth time to lick its wounds and recover.

May we never silence another living voice.

May the trees grow tall and the flowers spread their colors over the meadows.

May the songbirds fill the woods as of old.

May the owls meet in parliaments outside my bedroom window for years to come.

May the ospreys fish with abundance and the fish swim in the shadows.

May there be increasing pockets of silence form machines.

May the plastic be cleaned from the seas.

May the summers be cooler.

May the winters be colder.

May the autumns be brighter.

May spring be always the season of joy.

May the oceans stay cold and the glaciers hold their shapes.

May the chickens range free.

May the cows eat grass.

May the lambs cavort in pastures.

May the pigs live in peace.

May every queen bee have her hive.

May every goose find her gander, ever billy his nanny, every hind her hart.

May the rhinoceros live to see another century and more.

May the stars shine bright in clear skies.

May the dolphins play and the whales sound the deep in peace.

May the eagle's eye be sharp, the deer's ear keen, and the bear's nose honed to every odor in the woods.

May the wilds stay forever wild.

May the world and all its living beings thrive and prosper.

Still Obsessed with Noise Issues

    It's all a trade-off, isn't it? I don't like the noise of the washing machine, but I'm willing to endure it for the unmistakable convenience of doing my laundry at home. I will forego the convenience of the heat pump not to have continual motor noise in the house, but I will put up with the occasional starting-up noise of the refrigerator to be able to keep my food cool. Convenience, noise pollution, economy, environmental concerns—balance one against another, and another pops up.

    A heat pump is an efficient way to heat the house and is probably more environmentally suitable than burning with wood, even with a stove that heats efficiently with little pollution, because there is always some smoke. On the other hand, what runs the electrical power that runs the heat pump? Pacific Power uses coal, and even though I participate in its blue skies program, I'm not sure I've offset the use of coal that powers my heat pump. Hard to tell.

    And burning with wood doesn't pollute just from the smoke. A gas-powered chain saw cut down the tree, and even if were a tree already dead, am I not depriving birds and insects of homes and food in that snag and depriving the soil of the rotted wood that enhances it? Probably my two cords of firewood a year don't make much difference in those ways, but it's all a matter of balance. Years ago I read of an old woman in some poor country who walked miles each day to gather her firewood, and how she has to walk farther and farther every year. If "everyone" heated with wood, we, too, would soon run out of wood to heat our homes. Since we heat our homes with electricity, are we still being careful of use, overuse, and balance?

    I'm pretty sure I'll be glad to have the heat pump to cool the house in the too-too-hot days of summers. But which electrical appliance takes more energy, the heat-pump cooling system or the electric fan I used to run for hours during those days?

    It's such a balancing act: work, convenience, air pollution, noise pollution, heat, cooling, the needs of other species, carbon footprints, economy, personal needs, public responsibility. I think there is a way to stay in balance, but the balance must always lean in favor of the environment if we want our conveniences and pleasures to continue.

Quiet places in our lives

     Last week I wrote about preferring the beauty and ritual of fire-building to heating my house with the newly installed heat pump. I spoke from the point of view of ambient silence.

    I do think silence is important, and bigger fish than I are looking to ease the noises in our cities, where decibel levels are far above the recommended limit. But noise pollution—the loud stuff—is only part of the problem. I don't think we are even aware of the difference it would make not to have the constant hum of motors in our lives, however soft they are, however much in the background . 

    George Foy, a journalist and professor at New York University, went on a years' long search for any place on earth free of human-caused noise. He found no such place. Air traffic was the main problem. Noise from planes or helicopters penetrates every spot on earth, including, of course, my own house, where I am so proud of the silence. 

    Rachel Nuwer, who wrote the BBC.com article about finding quiet places, suggests that if you were to sit still and listen, right there where you are now, you would hear the hum of your computer (mine is a laptop and doesn't hum), the ticking of a clock (there are no ticking clocks in my house), the electric murmur of a refrigerator (once an hour or so, for three seconds, at my house) or an air conditioner (which I don't have), or the faint hum of a car passing by. I can hear cars on the road half a mile away, but infrequently. At the moment, in fact, with the window open, I hear only the occasional buzz of a fly or bee, the creak of the wood-burning stove as the fire settles, and—what was that?—a ground squirrel, maybe, scurrying across the deck. 

    And then for a short time this afternoon I could hear the low hum of some neighbor's motorized something, half a mile away.

    This comparative silence at my house on the mountain leaves room for "nature's melodies," which, Rachel Nuwer says, might be what our souls are really craving. There is no place on earth free of human-caused noise, but absolute silence isn't what we need. What we need is to free ourselves of human-caused noise, whenever and wherever we can, and then listen to what the earth is telling us. What we need is to rest our ears in the silence of natural noises. What we need is to take the conveniences electrical appliances give us (heat pumps, for instance) and balance that convenience with the need for quiet spaces in our lives.

    

Ambient Noise

     For forty years I lived on the mountain without electricity. I heated the house with a wood-burning stove, used kerosene lamps for light, and had a small propane cookstove. 

    With no motor noises, it was blissfully quiet at my house. 

    But I paid a price for that blissful silence. Kerosene lamps are messy and smelly and take constant work refilling the lamps, trimming wicks, cleaning chimneys. I hauled propane tanks up the hill on my shoulder. I stacked firewood for the winter, then brought it by the armload into the house, trailing bark and woods debris onto the floor. I chopped kindling. I took laundry to the laundromat. 

    Twelve years ago, when I moved into a new house on the mountain, with electricity, life became smoother and easier. I was happy not to be dealing with fuel. The noise of the washing machine was worth the convenience of washing clothes at home. The refrigerator sits behind a closed door, so its occasional noise is muffled. Life on the mountain was still pretty quiet. 

    And then, last month, I installed a heat pump. 

    A heat pump, I was told, is efficient. It will cool the house as well as heat it. Its hum, I was told, is minimal. Besides, I was finally told (with a bit of exasperation), I can use it only when I want it, with the expectation, I think, that I would want to use it all the time, given its convenience.

    Certainly it is convenient to heat the house at the click of a button or to program the machine to come on automatically every morning, but I still find myself performing the familiar morning ritual, kneeling in front of the stove to light the fire, coaxing the flame into a red-hot blaze.

The hum of the heat pump, I'm finding, is bothersome, after all. I like the silence of the woods around me. I don't ever want to go back to kerosene lamps and propane tanks—I am grateful every day for my electricity. But I'm in no hurry to trade my ritualistic wood-burning stove for the hum of the heat pump. The heat pump is there when I need it (and I'll probably really need it for cooling the house in the summer), and that's satisfaction enough.

Watching the trees

     I am generally a pretty even-keeled person. There's not a lot that storms my boat.

    But watching trees die distresses me no end. It's happening all over Southern Oregon and is especially noticeable in our Ponderosa pines. Everywhere, Ponderosas are turning brown. It's true that the pines lose needles at this time of year, anyway, but what I'm seeing goes beyond the normal cycle. The trees are dying. I wring my hands; I lament; I wail, and the trees turn browner and browner. Some are already but trunks and branches. I weep for the trees.

    I have a beautiful Ponderosa in front of my house. In winter frost etches the needles in silver. The sun sets every needle, every limb a-glimmer. In summer the sun slides behind the tree, shading the deck where I'm eating my lunch. The tree is the tallest in the view from my house, towering over the California live oak and apple tree in front of it and the madrone beside it. I have loved this tree for years. Its needles are browning, slowly, but there's still a chance it will live, given rain. But day after day goes by this October, and the sky is blue nd cloudless and the weather is warm.

    Caterpillars have invaded the madrone beside the pine. At first there was one nest on one branch; now four or five branches are webbed with nests. The tree looks weak, stressed.

    I have numerous California live oaks around my house, a species I don't see often in other places, much less at other homes. They are thick-leaved, sturdy trees and were seemingly invulnerable. Now, however, for the first time since I have lived on this mountainside, the leaves are turning brown. Oh, that just doesn't happen to these trees! I am so distressed.

   The trees on Humpy Mountain, my immediate view, seem dry and pale, even at that distance. 

    I have six or eight dead firs and pines close to my house that need to be taken down. Other neighbors and friends have talked about cutting down dead trees on their property.

    Drought. Climate change. 

    It distresses me beyond words, but all I can do is watch it happen, pray for rain (in my own way), and wish with all my heart that things would get better.

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 10, Second Half

From the rest stop at Rifugio Pian de Fontana to trail's end at La Pissa bus stop

    The original plan, last February, when we were planning this trip, was to take the exciting via ferrata route from Rifugio Pramparet and stay the last night at Rifugio Septimo Alpini before hiking out the next day. However, once we got to Italy and looked more closely at our material, we saw that hikers on this route had to have climbing gear and a guide. We tried to hire a guide and rent the gear, but in the end it was all too complicated and entailed too much extra hiking to try to meet the guide, so we gave up the effort and changed our plans to stay at Rifugio Pramparet the last night and do the long hike out on the last day. Yesterday's post gave a rendition of the first half of that last day. Now, at half-past noon, we were on the last leg of our hike on the Alta Via 1, from Rifugio Pian de Fontana to La Pissa bus stop, where we were to meet Bryan in his rented car.

Just setting off from Rif. Pian de Fontana. Photo by unknown stranger

    At first the downhill sloped gently across the steepness of the mountain. The vistas were open and stunningly beautiful.

                                                                        Photo by William della Santina

William was hiking fast, at his own pace at last, maybe already thinking about leaving for college the day after he got home. He was soon out of sight. Though Margaret could easily have been hiking with him, she stayed behind me. It was very kind; otherwise I would have been hiking by myself all day. (But, then, Margaret is a kind person.) 

William on the trail. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    At one point on that long, gradual descent across the steep, open, grassy mountainside, we came across a little trailside box with a statue of St. Anthony of Padua, the saint of lost things. Margaret surmised that it was there for the shepherds to pray for the sheep that had fallen off the trail and were lost. It was easy to see how that could happen, the sheep rolling over and over down the steep, open hill with nothing to stop it.  

    Not much farther down the trail we passed a young hiker who had stopped for a rest. She was from Cincinnati and was hiking the Dolomites by herself—and in sandals. We went on by, but she soon passed us, going at a fast clip, and then passed William where he was waiting for us, and we never saw her again.

    William was waiting on a large boulder at a turn in the trail. I think he had taken a good long nap while he waited. I stopped there to put an elastic bandage on my ankle, which was feeling weak.

    And then on down.

    Forever down. 

    Rock trail, root trail, clamber trail. Down and down. Finally we were at the last rifugio on the Alta Via 1, Rifugio Bianchet, which, like Pian de Fontana, looked pretty deserted. I took off my boots for our 15-minute break, then put them back on for our final descent.

    Now we were on a gravel road,

Going down the last road. Photo by Margaret dell Santina

which descended gently at first, much to the relief of my feet, but then it got steeper. Steep short-cut trails through the woods cut off some of the switchbacks of the road. Everything went down. My feet were hurting so badly by now they were affecting my pace. I simply could not walk any faster, no matter how late we were. The ace bandage had steadied my ankle, but the toes, the toes, the toes! The pounding on the bottoms of my feet. How my feet hurt! And the more they hurt, the slower I walked. There was no help for it. I could keep on going, but I couldn't go faster.

    I distracted myself by taking note of the beautiful landscape—the green-leaf trees, the perpendicular stone cliffs, the plunging river canyon. After the thousands of feet we had descended from the high country, how could there possibly still be such sheer drops hundreds of feet down?

    With only a mile or half-mile to go, the trail left the road completely and dashed impatiently down the hillside. By the time I stumbled down the last rock-and-root bit and joined William at the road—Margaret immediately behind me—it was 6:00, and we were an hour late. There was no bus stop and no Bryan and lots of whizzing traffic. I set my pack on the pavement, sat down on it, took off my boots, and stretched out my legs. Oh, the relief to my feet! Then I joined the consultation about what to do. 

    Finally William decided to brave the traffic and walk up the road, where he discovered the bus stop, which was only a wide place in the road. Bryan wasn't there. William came back to us and, on a miraculously functioning phone, contacted his dad and sent the coordinates of where we were. Then he, too, got off his feet while we waited.

                                                                        Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Twenty minutes later Bryan pulled up in his rented car.

    In 2016 Mike and I ended our hike on the Alta Via 2 at the last rifugio. It had been a hard last two days,—11 or 12 miles each day, with several climbs up very steep, long passes—but when we got to the rifugio, exhilaration trumped exhaustion. We did it! We hiked the Alta Via 2! In congratulations the owner gave us a beer on the house. The next morning we made a short, easy hike to the bus stop still in the glow of our achievement.

    Now, at the end of the AV 1, I felt no exhilaration, only relief to be able to take off my boots. On this last day we had hiked 10.6 miles, climbing 3000 feet and descending an amazing 7,700 feet. We had been on the trail for nine and a half hours and on our feet, walking, for eight and a half hours. My feet were telling me that that was enough. 

    And then when we got in the car with Bryan, there was so much to tell that somehow it didn't get told. And then we were in Treviso for the next three days, in a different kind of adventure, experiencing Italian cities, eating in outdoor restaurants, seeing churches, walking through streets.

                                                                                Photo by Bryan della Santina

The Alta Via 1 was tucked away in my memory somewhere, inaccessible, remote. 

    Finally, at home, rereading my journal and writing these blog posts, I began to retrieve the trip from my memory. The glorious mountain vistas. The steep climbs. The rifugios. The people we met. The challenges we faced and the joy of facing them. The strength of the body. The willingness of the feet to step into boots every morning, no matter how much they had hurt the night before. What great hiking partners Margaret and William were. How grateful I am to have been able to hike the Alta Via 1 with them.  How much I love the Dolomites. 

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 10, First Half

From breakfast till noon: Rifugio Pramparet to a rest stop at Rifugio Pian di Fontana

     Anxious about the long day ahead, I was ready to eat breakfast and leave our rifugio long before breakfast was served. I sat at an outdoor table and read from my Kindle while the rough-looking climbers were milling about, putting on gear. To my delight, the black-and-white cat from yesterday's walk jumped into my lap and stayed there till breakfast was called.

                                                Photo by William della Santina

    We left immediately after breakfast, retracing our steps to the trail junction, and then starting the third of my favorite climbs. (The other two were the long steep climb to Lagazuoi on Day 3 and the steady switchbacks on the mule road to Rifugio Coldai on Day 6—oh, but I should probably include the rocky climb to the clouds of Nuvolau, too.) Today we were going up and up, not with switchbacks but on an angled, upward trail, mostly rock, across a mountainside,

Margaret coming up.                     Photo by William della Santina

then more steeply up an open-faced mountain slope, and, finally, at the top of that, up a very narrow spine, hand over hand, no poles. I followed William up, lickety-split, no problem. It was superb.

    Or that's the way I saw it. William and I waited at the plateau while Margaret and the man with the camera equipment, whom I mentioned on Day 5, waited a long time at the top of the climb for his wife. (On Day 5 I commented about the way he apparently ignored his wife, who, we found out later, was a having a hard time because she was afraid of heights—in the Dolomites, of all things!) When the man's wife finally appeared, he gave her a high-five and then a kiss.

                                                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina

I decided he wasn't mean to her, after all, and that I shouldn't make judgements about people when I don't know their circumstances. And I was impressed with this woman for hiking in these steep mountains when she suffers from acrophobia and especially for making the narrow-rimmed climb she had just done.

    Somewhere before that tricky climb, somewhere on an upward, rocky part of the trail, I spied a rock I wanted to take home in honor of Mike. From every trail where I've scattered his ashes—the AV 1 is the 59th place—I have tried to bring home a rock. (Sometimes, for instance, on a cross-country ski trail in the snow, it was impossible to find a rock.) Those rocks outline my Zen garden. The one from today's trail was maybe too heavy to be practical, but it was beautiful, and it went in my pack.

                                                                             Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    After the hand-over-hand pull up the spine, the trail was still climbing, amazingly enough. Then it started dipping—steeply. Then more steeply, through grass-and-scree hills. Suddenly William cried, "Chamois!" I looked up to see a large herd of these goats of the Dolomites, grazing not on the grassy part of the hill but in the scree. We counted eight of them, spread across the hillside. We were close enough to see them well—how large they were, their dun or darker brown coats. Since chamois are supposedly shy, it was thrilling to see so many at once and for as long as we wanted.

    At the top of the next short rise we saw a sign, the only one of its kind on the Alta Via 1: "Warning. Steep and dangerous descent." I wondered what the people who posted the warning thought anyone would do at that point, since there wasn't really any alternative except to go down. So, okay, down we went.

    The sign wasn't wrong. This was the "long difficult descent" we had decided, wisely, to avoid at the end of a long day yesterday by staying at Rifugio Pramparet instead of at Rifugio Pian di Fontana, which we could see, minuscule with distance, on a small flat, grassy spot at the bottom not of the mountain but at least of this long, long, unbelievably steep hike. In a couple of places there was cable for us to hold onto—via ferrata—to keep us from falling off the cliff.

Me, then William, on the via ferrata. Photo by Margaret della Santina

I was thanking our good sense for not putting this difficult trail at the end of a long, long day, as in our original itinerary.

    By the time we got to Pian di Fontana, my feet were aching for relief. I sat down on a rock wall and took off my boots for the duration of our half-hour rest stop, strictly timed, because for the first time on our hike, we were on a time schedule, as we were to meet Bryan at the trail's end between 4:00 and 5:00. We were already behind schedule. but, we agreed, we needed to take a half-hour break.

    After we had been at so many rifugios bustling with people, Pian di Fontana seemed almost deserted.

                                                                            Photo by William della Santina
Margaret and me almost the only hikers at Pian de Fontana

I saw a couple of men who seemed to belong there, and a woman walked by with a bucket and mop. One lone hiker was eating lunch on the porch. More would come by dinnertime, but at the moment the rifugio was eerily devoid of people.

    After thirty minutes, my feet had to go back in their boots, and we set off again, William first, then me, then Margaret, as we had hiked for the past two days.

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 9

Rifugio Duran to Rifugio Pramparet. 5 hours,

    Breakfast at Rifugio Duran, served at 6:30, was unusual in that it wasn't a buffet but was served to us by the cheerful young student who had given us his room. We were on the trail by 7:40, our clean, dry clothes tucked into our backpacks.

    After a short downhill stretch on the paved road, we started uphill through the woods, where we were enraptured by many colorful mushrooms.

    We also passed some ruins of World War 1 barracks. The walls were partially crumbled, and plants grew in the dirt floors. The stonework was beautiful. It might not have been so great a place to live during the war, but like Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, the ruins elicited nostalgia for the past even though the specific past for these specific ruins was not a time to be nostalgic for. It wasn't the history that created the mood—not the one-time use of the building—but the general lament that ruins inevitably evoke. 

                         Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    Maybe just as inevitably, the ruins precipitated a conversation about concepts of time. Eastern traditions, William, who has traveled in China, pointed out, consider time as circular, not linear, as we see it. In Anglo-Saxon England, I told him, the concept of time was neither linear nor circular but simultaneous. In an Old English poem called "The Ruin," the poet muses on the ruins of Roman structures in the city that once was Bath (and is again). The poet sees the past Roman times and the future apocalyptic times simultaneously present in present time. And whereas I was peopling the rock-wall rooms of the barracks with the ghosts of World War I soldiers, that poet was peopling the ruins in Bath with very Anglo-Saxon-like people not because he couldn't imagine that Roman people were different but because Roman times and Anglo-Saxon times were, in his way of seeing time, all one.

    We continued up the mountain, conscious, given the culture we live in, mostly of the present moment.

    At the top of one ascent that Gillian Price more or less accurately calls a "modest climb," in a spot of stupendous scenery, we asked a young German man resting there with his two companions to take a picture of us with the Applegater, our community newspaper back in Oregon that has a page dedicated to pictures of people reading the Applegater in distant places. He obliged us cheerfully, but to my disappointment he didn't express curiosity about the Applegater or the Applegate.

                                                                                        Photo by unknown hiker

    We arrived at Rifugio Pramparet in time for what would have been a late lunch, and a welcomed one, since we had had only a few bites of energy bars since breakfast, but this rifugio, old and very isolated from "civilization," didn't accept credit cards, so we had to pay for our new reservations in cash. Alas, there weren't enough euros let over for a beer and a strudel, much less for lunch for a teen-age boy. We just ate another energy bar, drank water, and ruminated on the big jar of pine cones marinating in spirits on the table in the sun, a local eau de vie. William, Margaret, and I took a casual walk down the trail and met a beautiful black-and-white cat on her way back to the rifugio. Later, I spotted a chair carved from a tree stump below the rifugio deck and walked down to investigate. As you can see in the photo, I was wearing the dress I put on every afternoon after a shower. It was extra weight in my pack, but I loved the feeling of wearing a dress after being on the trail.

                                                             Photo by William della Santina

    Pramparet is a beautiful old rifugio, part stone, very different from the upscale, comfortable rifugios such as Vazzoler or Staulanza. 

     Rifugio Vaxxoler                                    Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Accommodations were rougher. Rooms were down a stone walkway, as at cheap motels in the United States.

                                                                            Photo by William della Santina
Dormitory rooms are on the left, dining room on the right.

Our room had four bunk beds, so we wouldn't be the only occupants tonight. The two toilets were down the walkway (to the left of the angle between buildings in the picture), attached to the main building, where the kitchen, bar, and dining room were. There was no "men/women" designation to the toilets, and the sinks were on the other side of the stalls, so inevitably I ran into a man in the bathroom. The showers weren't working. 

    The dining room tables seated ten or twelve people to a table, except for one, which seated six, where Margaret, William, and I ate with a strong Italian girl with gobs of red hair, and with a young Spanish couple from Barcelona, Sara and Javier, who now live in Berlin, where she works for an NGO and he does tech for a non-profit. They were delightful company. I especially liked Sara, who was dark-haired-pretty and lively as a squirrel. Her eyes grew wide when I said I was a writer, although she could have been just as impressed with Margaret's literary and scholarly output. Sara and Javier had to catch a bus to Venice after they walked out tomorrow, so they were planning to leave at 6:00 am. The rifugio people were going to prepare a sack breakfast for them and leave it by their door.

    Also staying at Rifugio Pramparet was a large group of big, tough-looking men. They were climbers, not hikers. I was relieved that none of them stayed in our room. We certainly had bunkmates, but I went to sleep so soon after dinner and was up so early I don't even know who they were. 

    

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 8

 Rifugio Vazzoler to Rifugio Duran. 4 hours

    Here's today's journal entry:

    "How can I differentiate today's hike to Rifugio Carestiato, then to Rifugio Duran, from the other days' hikes? Up one mountain, down another…. Today, we continued down the gravel road we had taken to Vazzoler yesterday—already such a long descent!—and now on down we went until the trail left the road and turned towards the cliffs, climbing steadily, through forest and then becoming more rocky. We had a fun little bit of via ferrata on this part of the trail, helping us on a narrow path at the base of a rock wall.

Me negotiating a via ferrata. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Margaret coming after me.    Photo by Diana Coogle

Up and up, across and across. Up and up and across and across, those remarkable spires to our left keeping us in shade.

                                        Photo by Margaret Della Santina

It wasn't difficult, but it was steady—up and up and across and across, always climbing. Sometimes boulder-hopping.

William on the boulders. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Sometimes over red-mud trail. On and on, up and up, across and across,

                                    Photo by Margaret Della Santina
William waiting for me at what looked like the top. 

until finally we could see Rifugio Carestiato ahead on a cliff. We stopped there for a snack (or for lunch, depending on the appetite)."

                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina
On the porch at Rif. Carestiato.
(Note that I have taken my boots off.)

    The porch of Rifugio Carestiato, in the sun, as well as the indoor dining room, was crowded with hikers. A family with two small children sat across the room from us. It wasn't the first family we had seen, but I marveled that they could take such small children on such a strenuous hike. 

    The descent from there to Rifugio Passo Duran C. Tomé was fairly easy, ending with a walk through cows grazing on the hillside. I was dismayed to see, as the rifugio came into view, a large number of cars and motorcycles in the parking lot. However, to my relief, most of the crowd had left by dinner time.

William hiking down to the rifugio.  Photo by Margaret Della Santina

        Because the rifugio was full, the wonderful young man at check-in, a student working there for the summer who wanted to live in the US for a year after graduation, told us he had given us the room he and his co-worker usually slept in.

                                                                            Photo by William della Santina
Our room is in the back, around the corner from the animals.

They would be fine in the trailer just off the porch, he said. "Oh, and don't be alarmed if you hear a donkey in the night," he added. "We keep them fenced in just outside your window during the night to keep the wolves from getting them." (I raised an eyebrow, but apparently there really are wolves in the Dolomites.) There was a bathroom with a wonderful shower for us to use, but "try not to use too much the hot water," he said.

    Margaret, William, and I took advantage of hot water and a clothesline to wash out underwear and socks, being careful not to use too much the hot water. It wasn't always possible to do a laundry at a rifugio (not enough time, no place to hang wet socks), so it was always good when we could.

    As we enjoyed an afternoon beer inside the now empty rifugio, we discussed plans for the next two days. The original itinerary was to do a six-hour day tomorrow, to Rifugio Pian di Fontana, but that would entail what seemed to be a treacherous descent at the end of the day, an especially bad idea if the thunderstorm William said was predicted materialized. We thought the better idea would be to stay at Rifugio Pramparet instead, which was closer to us than Pian di Fontana. That would mean a very long last day, but it seemed worth it for an easier and less dangerous day tomorrow.

    It seemed like a good plan for us, and, as it turned out, it would also be a good plan for a young German couple, Emma and Moritz, who were hiking from Innsbruck to Venice. They had wanted to stay at Pian di Fontana the next night but couldn't get reservations because the rifugio was full. We discussed the situation over dinner with them. If Pramparet had room for us, we could give our reservations at Pian di Fontana to them, and everyone would have a better hike.

    Miraculously, it all worked. Margaret contacted the two rifugios and was able to make reservations for us at Pramparet and to determine that Emma and Moritz could take our places at Rifugio Pian di Fontana. William, Margaret, and I would only hike as far as Rifugio Pramparet tomorrow, avoiding the thunderstorm, and the two young hikers would stay at Pian di Fontana, giving them more time to hike out the next day. Everyone was pleased.

    We didn't hear any donkeys that night, but the next morning we were delighted to make their acquaintance.

                                                 Photo by William della Santina

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 7

Rifugio Coldai to Rifugio Vazzoler. 3 hours, 45 minutes. 6 miles.

    Breakfast at Rifugio Coldai was served at 6:30. In addition to the usual basket of breads, plates of ham and cheese, bowls for yogurt and muesli, there was a platter of scrambled eggs. You might think with all the walking I was doing I would be losing weight on this trip, but the good food undid the good of the good walking.  

    The highlight of this day, as far as I'm concerned, was a swim in Lago Coldai, a green gem at 7032 feet.

Swimming in Lago Coldai.               Photo by Margaret Della Santina

It was a delicious swim, across the lake to the boulder side and back to the rock-pebble shore, where William had carried my towel and clothes to a spot in the approaching sun. The water was refreshingly cold. 

    The next highlight was Rifugio Tissi, a worthwhile detour on a sharp, vertical, rock-step ascent. We sat on the deck and had a coffee in the presence of awesome Dolomite peaks. Just as we were leaving the rifugio to make the short climb above it to the summit, we ran into Dana and Neil, the couple from Colorado we had met the night before. As we parted, they promised to come ski with me in Oregon. 

    At the summit above Tissi we had a 360-degree view of those Dolomite peaks. Far, far below, straight down the cliffs, we could see a blue lake and a town, Alleghe, minuscule below us. We could see the ribbon of the river stretching from the lake into the green hills, with house-knots on the river-ribbon winding up the valley.

                                                             Photo by Margaret Della Santina

William and I lay on the edge of the cliff, looking down.

                                                                        Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    Here, I decided, was the perfect place to spread some of my late husband's ashes, he who had hiked the Alta Via 2 with me six years ago. The wonderful memories of that trip have occurred again and again on this one. He would have loved to be here with us. I faced away from the view of Alleghe, gorgeous though it was, because of the wind, and flung the ashes towards other peaks, wishing Mike good resting in the Dolomites.

                                    Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    From time to time along the trail we have been seeing memorials to people who died on Dolomites climbs. Today we came to a large memorial with a statue (Mary? Jesus? A saint?) and a plaque with photos and a dedication to Marco Anghileri, obviously a beloved climber, greatly grieved.

                                   Photo by Margaret Della Santina

When we got to Rifugio Vazzoler, we saw more photos of him and a plaque in memoriam. He was 32 when he died on a climb.

    Later today we came to a memorial for another climber—an open frame with a broken climber's axe in it. Very poignant.

    The Dolomites take their toll.

    The day ended with a very long descent down a rocky road which was hard on my feet and on Margaret's, which also suffer from arthritis. Finally, though, we were at beautiful Rifugio Vazzoler.

                                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina

We were in time for a late lunch, which, for me, included a very good polenta and a pork-and beef sausage called pastine.

        You would think that Rifugio Vazzoler, after all the descending we had done, would be in a valley, but, in fact, it sits on a flat spot with enormous spires above it and plunging depths below it. The rifugio was picture-book beautiful, with red begonias in window boxes, sturdy picnic tables outside the building, magnificent mountain peaks above it, and a wildflower garden on terraces down the mountain, though, of course, nothing was in bloom at this time of year. 

                                                                                        Photo by Diana Coogle

                                                           Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    Margaret and I were sitting at one of the outdoor tables, writing in our journals, when one of the group of German climbers—they were here to do some via ferrata—at the table next to us asked if I would take their picture. What ensued was a lively exchange of banter and get-acquainted questions. (They were the only people we met who made a snide—or any other type—comment about Trump.) Later, at dinner, they were very loud, singing and joking, and in the morning, when I saw one of the women and asked how she was, she said, "Too much alcohol last night." I hoped she wasn't going climbing later that day. 

Me with the German climbers.         Photo by Margaret Della Santina