Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 6

Rifugio Staulanza to Rifugio Coldai. 2 hours, 10 minutes.

     After yesterday's long hike we would have only two hours of hiking today, so we luxuriated in our luxurious quarters at Rifugio Staulanza until almost 10:00.

    From the rifugio we walked along the paved road, which we soon crossed onto a gravel road through a logged area with large piles of logs and slash. (We didn't see much logging in the Dolomites, but some.) Then we headed up a lovely grassy hill,

                                                              Photo by Margaret dell Santina

down the other side, and across a road to the last climb of the day to Rifugio Coldai.

    At the start of the winding, narrow, stone-and-gravel road to the rifugio, a World War I mule track, we passed a small house with a large flock of sheep around it.

                                                        Photo by Diana Coogle

Just then, a car passed us and went up the driveway. I caught sight of "Socorro Alpini" on the side door. Shortly after that a drone buzzed overhead as we were hiking. It hesitated a good long time over us, tipping slightly. At first we were annoyed by the intrusion and the noise, but then we realized that the car must have been a search-and-rescue operation and that the drone, sent to spot the person in trouble, was making sure it wasn't one of us. 

    I loved the hike up the road to Rifugio Coldai. Though the mountain was very steep, the road zigzagged at the perfect rate for my pace.

                                      Photo by Margaret dell Santina
William on the road to Coldai. 

I ignored all shortcuts between switchbacks and kept on with my steady ascent with no stops and no change of breath. The trail turned sharply uphill at the end, but my pace held steady to the top, where the road flattened just enough to lead to the rifugio.

    On the other hand, the woman hiking behind me was talking on her cell phone all the way up.

  Rifugio Coldai.                          Photo by Diana Coogle

    Although Rifugio Coldai is an old building, it looked new and modernized, as did all the rifugios we had been in so far. William speculated that the government, who owned most of the rifugios, took advantage of the COVID hiatus to make renovations.

    We left our boots in the shoe room, as at all the rifugios,

                                                             Photo by Margaret dell Santina

and ordered lunch in the dining room, which was very crowded. It amazed me that so many people would make that long, difficult trek for lunch here. The two outlets for charging cell phones were in high demand.

                                      Photo by Margaret dell Santina

    After lunch Margaret and William disappeared, while I stayed in the dining room, writing in my journal. After a while I disturbed the young woman at the outside end of the bench to go to the bar for a spritz. The bright orange Campari spritz that I returned with opened a conversation, and soon, in the way of hikers on the Alta Vias in the Dolomites, we had become friends. She (Dana) and her husband (Neil), who was sitting across the table, were from Colorado and had taken early retirement from their jobs as environmental lawyers. They were hikers and skiers. After this trip in the Dolomites they would be hiking in Switzerland. At dinner time William and Margaret joined us, and for the first time on our hike, we were sharing a table with  friends. Until Coldai, rifugios had assigned tables to specific guests. Ours was usually for "Della Santina" because Margaret had made most of the reservations, a task I was immensely grateful to have her do. On two occasions, though, I had made the original contact, so the reservation, for lodging and board, was in my name.

Our table at Lagazuoi. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

     

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 5

 Nuvolau to Staulanza. 6 hours, 40 minutes

    

    Nuvolau presented a splendid sunrise this morning. I watched the sun streaking rays above the clouds, breaking through a hole in them to drop gold and copper coins on the clouds and peaks. Stunning, from that rifugio in the clouds.

    Today would be a long day, so we started down the trail immediately after breakfast, dressed warmly. First we retraced the rock-climb trail down to Rifugio Averau.

                                            Photo by Margaret della Santina

At Averau we stopped to read the kiosk display about World War I activity.The cable car apparatus we could see heading down the mountain had brought wounded men down the hill and supplies up. Mules were also used. One soldier managed to bring up cats and a dog for the soldiers stationed on this lonely mountain.

    Finally we headed down the mountain on a very steep, rocky, fall-on-your-butt (I did once) trail, a sort of "via" that could have used some ferrata!

                                            Photo by Margaret della Santina

In fact, there was a via ferrata route down from Nuvolau, which we had been advised, given the weather and other factors, not to take. As we hiked under the cliff on which Nuvolau sat, Margaret kept looking for the via ferrata route we hadn't taken. I think she wished we could have done it. I think she wants to come back.

    After we came down that mountain, we went up another one, in the general way of the Dolomites. A rendition of the AV1 begins to sound repetitious: hike up, hike down, hike up, hike down. But the landscape varied rapidly, and there was always something interesting on the way. Today we passed beautiful and paved-road-accessible Rifugio Giau, where we stopped for a coffee.

                                                                            Photo by William della Santina

    We climbed a short but steep ascent to a narrow pass, where we met a man carrying a camera and a tripod (hiking all that distance with that heavy equipment!). He took our picture there at the pass.

I'm sorry to say, though, that I didn't much like him because to say he was hiking with his wife is to exaggerate the "with." The trail seemed to be difficult for her, and as we descended the other side of the pass, I noticed that he was walking very far ahead of her, as though annoyed with her. I felt sorry for her and irritated with him.
    We walked through wide grassy pastures today, too,

Margaret and me on the trail.                    Photo by William della Santina

once with a large flock of sheep grazing and baaing on the hills and, at a great distance, a shepherd lying in the grass with his dogs. Suddenly the dogs jumped up and started turning the sheep, obviously at a signal from the shepherd. A little dachshund ran with the other dogs, as fast as his little legs could carry him, doing nothing to help but having a great time and feeling important. The sheep made a cream-colored flow as they turned.

    Not too far beyond the sheep, we passed a sign to a Mesolithic burial site. Margaret contemplated turning off our route to see it, but it looked like a long detour, so we stuck to our route. Today was already going to be a long day.

    Finally, after walking for hours, up hill and down, we came at last to Rifugio di Fiume, where we would have stayed the night except that it was full when we went to make our reservations. That's why today's hike was a long one: we had to walk another hour and a half to get to Rifugio Staulanza. There was a long discussion at di Fiume about whether to turn onto a different trail. William consulted his online maps. Margaret had a paper map, and I had Gillian Price's guidebook. We consulted and argued and tried to figure out the right trail. Ultimately I dropped out of the discussion because I have such a poor sense of direction I was just muddling the picture. When some other hikers came by, we consulted with them, too, and determined that we should take the turn-off through the forest—another root-strewn, muddy trail through a beautiful forest.

                             Photo by Margaret della Santina

    Finally we dropped over a hill and Rifugio Staulanza was before us, situated on a paved road that smacked of civilization. 

                                                           Photo by Diana Coogle

Here we had the luxury of a private room with four beds (not bunks) and our own bathroom and shower—and the bonus of a rainbow over the mountains.

                                             Photo by Margaret della Santina

    We had been eight hours on our feet except for a short coffee break at Rifugio Giau. I flung myself on the bed and let my feet throb. I took a good long shower in our private bathroom and washed some clothes. We had a very good dinner (pumpkin ravioli for me). Then I went to bed. I didn't even hear Margaret and William when they came in.

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 4

Lagazuoi to Nuvolau. 8.7 miles. Supposedly a 5-hour day, but longer for us, due to backtracking. 

    This was a day of great variation.

    (1) Lost hat. First we had to descend all those tight zig-zags on the trail from Lagazuoi down to the signpost for Rifugio Nuvolau on the plateau, at which point Margaret discovered that she had left her hat at the rifugio. So she left her pack with William and me and climbed all the way back up to the rifugio! In much too short a time to have done such a climb, she was back, with her hat, which, being the same color as the coverlet on the bed, she had not noticed when she was packing up.

    (2) Backtracking ("again," for Margaret). William, Margaret, and I climbed down the hill and came to a beautiful transparent stream falling into a deep hole. There the trail seemed to peter out. William climbed down the cliff anyway, but Margaret and I decided it was better (safer) to huff back up the trail, cut across the hill, and join the gravel World War I road that we probably should have taken in the first place. Then we hiked easily down it and met William.

    (3) World War I structures. We passed more rock-built World War I shelters and other structures, always interesting, and sobering to think of soldiers in these mountains.

                                                                            Photo by William della Santina

    (3) Rock climbers. As we hiked under the base of great sheer cliffs, we noticed the climbers, first a few, then more and more, clinging to the rock surface, looking like children's stickers. Our easy walking allowed ample opportunity to gawk at them doing their superhuman, incomprehensible, fly-on-a-wall climbs. We continued on a gentle downhill, eventually coming to a large grassy hillside where a flock of sheep was grazing, with its shepherd and dogs lying on a distant hillside. Large flocks of sheep or small herds of cows were not uncommon in the Dolomites.

                                                            Photo by Diana Coogle

    (4) Steep again. We crossed a paved road and started up, through the greenery of a forest and deciduous undergrowth, going steadily up.

                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Soon we came out of the greenery onto another steep, curving, gravel road. We passed a classy-looking rifugio under the stunning rock formation called Cinque Torri, five towers, which is what it looked like.

Cinque Torri.                 Photo by Diana Coogle

There were many hikers on this road, and as we climbed up it, a passel of bicyclists also passed us, on a very sharp turn on that steep gravel road. It was obviously a difficult maneuver. One man had only one arm. His handlebars wobbled like crazy, but he stayed in control. Very impressive.

    (5) Rifugio Averau. The road ended at Rifugio Averau, beautifully situated in all the rock, on the edge of a sheer cliff-fall, with extraordinary views up and down. Many of the many people who were walking this difficult road were apparently at Averau for lunch. Gillian Price says this rifugio has the best food on the AV 1. Alas, we had to take her word for it, since we were headed toward Nuvolau for the night.

Heading towards Nuvolau, William following me. 
                                                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    (6) Rifugio Nuvolau. Think about it: "nuvolau" means "cloud." The rifugio is on the pinnacle of a rock tower. To get there we climbed on an incredible rock trail, steeply up the peak.

Now I follow William.                  Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Five minutes before we got there, the rain that had been teasing us all day turned serious. We donned rain jackets, then carried on, now over slippery rocks on the steep ascent to the top. At the top, the rifugio took up all the space on the needle-pointed peak.

                                                 Photo by Diana Coogle

All around were those incredible Dolomite peaks—sharp, like needles, or flat, like tables, or straight-walled, like boxes. A climber's dream. A hiker's glory. A skier's paradise.  Cortina, in the valley below, was the center of the Winter Olympics in 1956 and will be again in 2026. 

    There was a sculpture on the wrap-around deck of the rifugio, given to the rifugio by the sculptor in honor of his eight hundredth ascent in the Dolomites. (Or did he mean his eight-hundredth ascent to Nuvolau?)

                                     Photo by Margaret della Santina

    (7) Accommodations. At Nuvolau we were in a dorm room for eight people, which we shared with three others, in a sloped-roof attic space.

Before our bunkmates arrived.             Photo by William della Santina

There were no showers. We ate dinner at a table next to a warm fire roaring in the stove. The sunset was rapturous.

    Of all the rifugios, in spite of its spartan accommodations, I loved Nuvolau best for its situation. The rifugio on the peak. The rifugio in the clouds.

    

    

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 3

Lavarella to Lagazuoi. 6 hours. 8+ miles.

    This was the day that tested our mettle. The first two days, for all that we gained a lot of elevation, were mere warm-ups. This was the day that said, "So you want to hike the Dolomites? All right, then, take this!"

    It had rained during the night, so we started out in full rain gear. The creek by the rifugio was now a beautiful thrashing river. The trail was at first a gentle stroll. Then we climbed a bit.

Up to the gap. Note the figures in center
and towards the top of trail.
Photo by Margaret Della Santina

And then, at the top of that subtle climb, we faced an unbelievable descent.    

    We could see straight down the cliff, perpendicularly to a tiny spot of blue at its bottom that was Lago di Lagazuoi.

                                                                        Photo by Margaret Della Santina

We could see the trail dropping in zig-zags down the cliff,

The zig-zag trail following the cliff down
                                                    Photo by Diana Coogle

and, worse, we could see the trail straight up the opposite mountain that we would have to climb to get to the rifugio, which was, from this distance, but a tiny square shape on top.

The rifugio is just visible to the left of the dense cloud.
                                                            Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Somehow we would have to get there.

    Because the descent was done in tight switchbacks (I wasn't counting, but surely there were a hundred or more), it wasn't too bad. We stopped briefly at the lake, where I didn't swim because the lake looked shallow and because there were groups of people sitting around it, staring into it, and I didn't care to be the focus of attention. And the weather was still threatening, so we didn't linger but turned, after a short pause, to the trail.

    The first part of the climb went steadily up, but not too badly. William led; Margaret came next, making sure to keep me in sight. I hit a good rhythm, coordinating my pace and my breath, climbing steadily up the notch between two giant pink-and-gray cliffs, which I think were the Lagazuoi Grande and Lagazuoi Piccolo that Gillian Price mentions, strategic places in World War I. 

    Finally we came to a small plateau with a signpost pointing left to the trail we would take tomorrow. To the right was the steep slog first up hard rock

Photo by Margaret Della Santina

up tight zig-zags, supported by timbers,

Photo by Margaret Della Santina

up to Rifugio Lagazuoi, still seen as a tiny box at the top. Partway up we passed some World War I tunnels and shelters. Price says that this area was "the arena of fighting and terrible loss of life during the 1914-18 conflict," and we saw much evidence of this in the timbers that held up the trail, stone edging here and there, and especially in these tunnels. We stopped to walk through one with our flashlights.

                        Photo by Margaret Della Santina

 William was fascinated, and he and Margaret explored the tunnel thoroughly and stopped in at least one other. I appreciated the historical perspective, but it gave me the shivers to be there, and, besides, I was in uphill mode. I preferred to keep a steady pace without stopping.

    It took us more than an hour to climb from Lago di Lagazuoi to Rifugio Lagazuoi, which, at 9029 feet,  is the highest point on the AV 1. 

Photo by Diana Coogle

There was a ski-lift station just below the rifugio—Margaret was enthusiastically considering the possibility of coming back to ski—and a sauna (pay to use) on the deck. The views, in all directions,  were without hindrance (except for clouds) and spectacular. Here were the Dolomites, everywhere, as far as a person could see, worth every moment and every muscle to get there to see them.

Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    Was my reward for this hard and exhilarating climb the gorgeous sunset over the mountains? The good dinner? The compliment on my hiking style—"so steady, and you never got out of breath!"—by the American woman who had hiked behind me? A bed for the night? Yes, yes, yes, but I think the best reward of all was that my mettle was tested, and it wasn't found wanting.  

    

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 2

 Day 2: Sennes to Lavarella. 4 3/4 hr.

    Breakfast at Sennes, as at all the rifugios, was buffet style and, as at most of them, consisted of cafe au lait, yogurt with either cornflakes or muesli, cheeses and hams, and a variety of breads. Breakfast was at 7:30. We were on the trail by 8:30.

    At first we were walking down a wide World War I-era road that stretched upward,

Margaret on the porch at Sennes, overlooking the WW I road
photo by Diana Coogle

but we soon turned onto a trail,

William on the trail.
Photo by Margaret Della Santina

then back on the road and back on the trail and back on the road, always descending, until finally we were on a "knee-jarring white dirt road," as guidebook writer Gillian Price calls it, built by the Italian military in the 1960s. It zig-zagged steeply between dramatic, vertical, gray-and-pink cliffs

             Me and William                       Photo by Margaret Della Santina

into a distant valley, where we could see, far below us, the large Rifugio Pederú, set in a parking lot filled with tiny-as-ants cars and buses. The number of vehicles explained the large number of people we met on the trail, who were puffing up this very strenuous road we were coming down. Some were families with small children. I was impressed. What fortitude these people have!

    We shunned the busy-ness at the rifugio, but we did stop at the clear-as-glass stream next to it, where I took off my boots and soaked my aching feet in the ice-cold water. From my point of view the descent was more foot-pounding that knee-jarring!

    From there the trail took us up the other side of the valley, along with crowds of other people.

                                  Photo by Margaret Della Santina

Many of those hikers passed me as I trudged upward. Margaret and William were far ahead of me but waited from time to time as I kept on with my tortoise-style, slow-and-steady pace which got me to the top without stopping—except, surprise! it wasn't the top, after all, and the trail was still going up and up and up, through a miniature forest of stubby pines and under pink-and-gray striped cliffs and peaks.

                                                Photo by William della Santina

    Big clouds accumulated, separated, came together again.

    Finally we came to the turn-off to Rifugio Lavarella, where we were to stay the night. Lavarella is a beautiful rifugio, set under the gray-stone peaks beside a shallow but wide stream with cows musically grazing in the grassy fields. It was lovely.

                                                                                        Photo by Diana Coogle

    Lavarella is a family-run rifugio that brews its own beer (a very good brew), makes sausages from farm-raised chamois (also delicious), and offers, among other items on the dinner menu, spinach dumplings with tomato sauce "from Mama's recipe," which is what I had. There was polenta, a staple on every menu, as we were to learn. However, this is the only place where we had beer ice cream for dessert.

William had polenta for dinner, frequently served at the rifugios
Photo by William della Santina

    My journal notes say that I was in bed at 8:00. And that I slept well.

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Day 1

Lago di Braies to Rifugio Sennes. 4 hours, 4 1/2 - 5 miles

    After four splendid days in Venice, Bryan (Margaret's husband and William's father) drove us to Lago di Braies, where Margaret (60) and William (18) and I (78) would begin our ten-day hike on the Alta Via 1. Bryan walked with us half-way around the lake to the trailhead. The lake was aqua blue; Dolomite domes leapt above it, and by the time we got halfway around the lake, the sun had warmed the beach. It was irresistible: I went for a swim. The water was 51 degrees.

Swimming in Lago di Braies
Photo by Bryan della Santina

I was enjoying it so much I didn't want to leave the water, but I was delaying our start on the trail, so I finally pulled myself out, got dressed, and the three of us bid Bryan good-bye and started up the trail.

Me with Margaret and William, on the trail.
Photo by William della Santina

    Though the trail wasn't nearly as steep as some we were to tackle in the coming days, it went up for a long time, climbing 2,925 feet from Lago di Braies (at 4,908 feet) to the high mountains. We climbed through beautiful rocks, then across meadows, still up, then over a rocky trail, always up, steadily up. 

Me, William. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

On one cliff of rocks we came upon our first via ferrata, a cable to hold onto as we carefully tread across the cliff.

You can see that I'm holding onto a cable.
Photo by Margaret Della Santina

    On the downhill Margaret and William, with a faster pace, got far ahead of me as I picked my way down the rocks, then up a steep grassy slope and over and up and across and down and across and up. I was hiking in all that splendor without another person in sight. It was glorious and expansive, though  it wouldn't have felt so glorious if I hadn't known that William and Margaret were ahead of me.

Margaret waiting for me on the trail.
photo by William della Santina

    At last we came to Rifugio Sennes, a beautiful, large, chalet-style building with cows grazing on the hills below the rifugio, their bells tinkling musically. Everything in the rifugio looked new and spiffy. Accommodations were pretty cushy.

                                              photo by Margaret Della Santina

Because a number of trails led to Rifugio Sennes, the chalet was buzzing with hikers, among them a woman from Ashland whose son had gone to the same high school that William attended and whose mother used to listen to me on the radio. Amazements never end.

Rifugio Sennes is in the background
photo by Margaret Della Santina

Hiking the Alta Via 1 in Italy's Dolomite Mountains

   I have just come back from hiking in the Dolomite Mountains for the second time. The first time was six years ago, with my late husband, on the Alta Via 2. (See posts between September 21 and October 27, 2016.) This time I went with my friend Margaret and her eighteen-year-old son, William, and we were hiking the Alta Via 1.

William, me, Margaret. Day 5 on the AV 1. Photo by another hiker

The AV 1 is seventy-five miles long and generally takes eleven days. However, even though we started making reservations in February, some of the rifugios were already booked full, and we had to adjust the recommended stages to do the hike in ten days. 

    Starting at 4908 feet, at Lago di Braies, the AV 1 peaks at 9029 feet.

View from Lagazuoi, the highest rifugio on the AV 1
photo by Margaret Della Santina

Its lowest point, at the end of the last day, is 1470 feet. Total elevation gain is approximately 21,833 feet, but that doesn't mean much, since any particular day might gain and lose and gain again many hundreds of feet of altitude. Our shortest day was two hours. We had two long, eight-hour days. We stayed in nine rifugios, sometimes in a private room, sometimes in a room with six or eight other people, sometimes in a room for four without a fourth person. We had dinner and breakfast at the rifugio and generally ate extremely well; breakfasts were substantial (cafe au lait, yogurt with either cornflakes or muesli, cheeses, hams, breads with jam or Nutella, sometimes eggs, too), and the dinners—prima (first course), secondo (second course), and dessert—lots of pastas, polenta, sausages, hams, and Italian sauces—were usually very good.

Photo by William della Santina

We met many hikers and made quick friends—a couple from Colorado who promised to come ski at Crater Lake with me, a young couple from Spain now living in Germany, a couple from North Carolina, and three women who had stolen a week from their families to hike together in the Dolomites. Except for the last group, who were hiking the opposite direction from ours, we saw these people at different rifugios along the way.

    Having hiked in the Dolomites before, I knew, more or less, what I was in for, so I spent as much of the summer as possible hiking. I chose the steepest trails I knew and hiked with a pack. I hiked and hiked and hiked, and then the day came when I was flying to Italy and all preparations had to be sufficient. 

    And they were. I was so glad I had done all that physical labor! No matter how steep and long the trail, my legs never cried out for a stop, my muscles never ached, and my breath was adequate. At Rifugio Lagazuoi, the highest point on the trail, at the top of a very long, steep climb,

Note how far away the rifugio is. Photo by Margaret Della Santina

a woman complimented me on my hiking style, telling me she had hiked behind me and was impressed with how steadily I climbed. Margaret said she would have been even more impressed if she had known I was 78. 

    By my observation, I was the oldest person hiking the entire AV 1, and William, at 18, was the youngest. There were young children on various parts—and on some impressively difficult parts—but it didn't look like anyone younger than William was hiking the whole trail.

    Because of arthritis in my feet (hallux rigidus, bunions, bone spurs, neuromas), downhill is more difficult than uphill, and no amount of training could make that any easier. At the end of each eight-hour day, I flung myself down, took off my boots, and just let my feet throb. On the whole, though, I was highly pleased with my body and what it did for me. 

    Margaret and William were great hiking companions. We shared rooms easily; no one complained about anyone's sleeping habits, and we agreeably went to bed and woke in the morning in sync, ready for breakfast when it was served and for the trail shortly after breakfast. In addition, Margaret took care of all the logistics—booking the rifugios, speaking Italian, handling the monetary exchanges. I couldn't have found better companions for the Alta Via 1. Both William and Margaret hiked faster than I, but they sometimes let me go first, anyway, and they sometimes hiked ahead of me but waited at every junction for me to catch up.

William and Margaret, hiking ahead of me

On the last very long day, with its steep and interminable descent, I hiked between them. William would hike way ahead, then stop to wait for us to catch us (and take a nap, I think; he certainly had time for it). I kept suggesting to Margaret that she could go in front of me because she hikes faster, but she said she liked the pace. 

    I loved this trip on the Alta Via 1 with Margaret and William. I love the Dolomites. For the next ten days I will post a day-by-day account of this hike, hoping to give you a glimpse into why.