Italy – Dolomites and beyond

September 2009

Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/MarkSNewell/Dolomiti#

We traveled to Italy to hike the "Alta Via 2", a 12 day traverse through the Dolomites, trekking from hut to hut, in northeast of the country. This is a spectacular area – very dramatic, jagged mountains - and our trip was even more incredible than we expected, although we had to shorten our hike to only 8 days because too many of the mountain huts were closing for the season.

We started from a small town called Bressanone, an area that feels more like Austria or Germany than it does Italy – they speak German, the food is German, the architecture looks German, and everything is so orderly and clean. In fact almost all the huts on our trek were German speaking, and served hearty German meals – sausage, weissbeer, big doughy dumpling type things in soup, wild mushrooms with polenta, schnitzel, etc. I was surprised to find that my German was decent enough to get by most of the time.

The first day we hiked though dense forest and beautiful rolling green pastures with sheep and cows nibbling away. After a grueling 4,500 foot climb in a few hours (ouch), we arrived at our first mountain hut, Rifugio Plose, at 7, 338 feet. We weren't quite sure if it was the climb, the jet lag, the altitude, or the huge German beer that made us so tired (most likely a combination of all these things) and made staying awake until 8pm really challenging, but we managed.

The next morning we had our first peek at what was in store for us over the coming days – we awoke to the Dolomites in their full glory – high, jagged, dramatic peaks dotted with lush pine forests and green rolling valleys. Each day throughout our hike we were sure we'd seen the most dramatic set of mountains…but they just kept getting better and more outrageous as we went along.

Most days we hiked between 4 and 8 hours, starting early each day, as the refugios have a set time that they serve breakfast and clean the dorm rooms. Typically we would arrive at the next hut with time to explore, read, and drink a big beer before dinner at 6:30. The weather was nice but cold – we were glad we brought along our warm hiking clothes. The huts – which were really more like lodges, built of stone and often sleeping 50 to 80 people – provided plenty of warm blankets for their dorm-style beds, so we didn't need to carry anything but our clothes. Heating in the huts was usually just in the main dining room where everyone would hang out, so the bedrooms were really cold. Many of the huts are so high and remote that they receive their supplies via helicopter – which helps explain the prices – not cheap when you're used to camping in the mountains for free. We typically paid around 80 Euro ($120 USD) for two dorm beds, a hearty dinner, two beers, and breakfast the next day (which almost always consisted of coffee, and sliced bread or rolls with jam, honey, nutella, and some creepy meat-type paste.)

Each day we would look back over the terrain we had covered, and were astounded at the distances we covered and the massive mountains that we walked through. This region has an extensive trail system, and many ski lifts (mostly only operating in winter) and quaint mountain huts all over the place. These trails see a lot of hikers, but still feel remote and wild. And how cool is it to stop in at a cute little hut for a double shot of espresso before you climb the next hill?

We had to throw in the towel early, as many of the huts closed on September 20^th, and we were faced with a very challenging day (16 hours of nonstop hiking at high altitude) with no hut to sleep in. We were a little disappointed, but were grateful (and pretty tired at that point) for what we had been able to accomplish. And ending our hike early only meant that we'd spend more time somewhere else in Italy gorging ourselves on pizza, pasta and gelato…so we couldn't complain!

We ended up having to hitchhike out of the little town we ended up in – which took a few hours, but we managed to catch a ride from a lovely young geologist from Turin. That afternoon we headed to Verona for a night, then continued on to Ravenna for a few days, then dropped into Florence for a day on our way to Siena.