It had already been a very long day. 7 hours on the trail covering 9 miles, climbing 4000 feet and nearly every inch of it on snow and ice. Now we were sitting at the famed Rifugio a Locatelli, in the shadow of the stunning Tre Cime Peaks.
Yet, we could scarcely take it in. We were completely knackered, to use the mountaineering term. Beyond knackered. Lori in particular was just mutely staring into space as she rested on a wooden bench while I fed her our last bits of chocolate. The water was long gone.
We had planned an Autumn hiking trip to the Dolomites, not a winter one. But sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate with your plans. It had snowed 3 feet just two days before we arrived. But I was determined to do the incredible hikes that I had been reading about for months. I wasn't going to let a little snow get in our way. And, it was a bluebird day with the snow giving the mountains a special beauty.
But we were very tired and not a little worried. We still had 3 miles to go down a precipitous descent of 4000' to the valley floor, where we had left the car what seemed like yesterday. Instead of contemplating the unreal beauty of the place, we just mumbled "we better get going..."
We had decided to come in the fall; to enjoy the mountains with fewer crowds, less heat, and some autumn resplendence. The snow was a surprise. All the locals kept remarking "it's not usually like this."
As a result, our first day of hiking (the day before) was somewhat comical. We arrived at the trailhead ready to tackle the Durrenstein Peak; but we were dressed like a couple of Vermonters out for a day hike. We had no crampons on our boots, no gaiters, and only Lori had hiking poles. Meanwhile, the Austrians that were pouring into the car park were outfitted like they were ready to tackle K2.
That's us on the left. The Austrians on the right.
They instantly left us in their wake as they went off to grimly conquer the mountains. We made it less than a mile before deciding we would not be summiting Durrenstein this day. We did manage to struggle up to an incredible ridge and get our first full-blown, mind-melting view of the mountains.
On the way down, we saw lots of other similarly ill-prepared hikers, whom we took to be the Italians, happily sloshing up the slope, which made us feel better. And as we reached the car, we saw that The Stube was open! One of the reasons we LOVE to hike in Europe is the mountain huts or in this case Rifugios (Italian for awesome hotel, restaurant, bar, shelter in the most beautiful and improbable places imaginable). There are over 1000 rifugios in the Dolomites!
Despite the snow, the deck was lovely and warm in the mid-day sun and we thought "beers?" After the first round, we had two cappuccinos, and then two more beers. This is what we had trained for.
That afternoon we even squeezed in a shorter hike on the Lago di Braies which is sort of the Lake Louise of the Dolomites. Much too pretty for its own good, but wow, it sure was pretty.
So far so good on the Dolomites. Over the next ten days we were trying to follow this itinerary of hikes from travel blogger Marta at In a Faraway Land.
The next day's planned hike was the daunting Croda Fiscalina Circuit. 12 miles and 4000' of elevation. Not an easy day, even on an easy day. We decided to tackle it with poor equipment over 3-feet of snow that had already gone through a couple of freeze-thaw cycles, covering the trail with slick ice patches. We would have at least purchased some Trax in town before setting out, but of course it was Sunday, in Italy. Shops are closed.
So all in all, probably not smart. Definitely not smart. But it was our one chance to experience this once-in-a-lifetime alpine marvel. And the weather was perfect, at least up in the sky. So off we went.
We did make one prudent decision. That was to take time to fortify our bodies before venturing into the mountains.
Our hotel was classic old world Europe—in The Grand Hotel Budepest style. The evening before, we made full use of the spa—ranging from steam room to sauna to relaxation room in our terry cloth robes.
The morning of the hike we tied on the feed bags for the breakfast smorgasborg.
The hotel had the usual spread of breads, pastries, meats, cheeses, eggs, fruit, cereal, etc. but we still discovered a new trick—the Nutella Injection. What you do is take a fresh, melt-in-your-mouth, powdered croissant and then you slide your Nutella probe into the moist pastry folds, squeeeeeze and release! Skyrockets in flight. Euro Breakfast Delight.
Why just spread Nutella on your toast when
you can mainline it directly into your bloodstream?
Thus steamed, rested and stuffed—off we went. I would describe the day this way: moments of sheer joy and awe punctuated by a similar number of moments of terror, mental anguish and exhaustion. And that was just me. Lori was much worse.
Let me start by saying that Lori is no shrinking violet. She's as tough as they come. Has to be to be married to me. She barrel raced horses as a teenager. She has hiked and scuba dived all over the world. And she raised two boys with nary an eyelash batted. But, like all of us, she does have some weak points. Not unlike the Death Star had that one little tiny hole where if you fire a space gun into it from an X-Wing fighter—the whole thing blows up (kind of a design flaw if you ask me, like why not just put a little manhole cover over that spot?).
Anyway, for Lori it's ice and heights. Just a little bit of either of those things reduces a proud, strong woman to the jelly knees. I'm not kidding, she just kind of crumples into a puddle. Imagine Lex Luther hitting Superman with a Kryptonite laser beam. Like that.
And, if you combine both ice and heights together, well... let's just say that it wasn't an ideal plan.
As soon as we had ascended 1000 feet it was already like the Fellowship of the Rings as they crossed the Misty Mountains (minus the Orcs) with narrow snow covered ledges dropping off a few hundred feet to one side, while melting snow avalanched off the cliffs above us directly onto the path.
As Lori's anxiety grew, I felt like Wesley, man-splaining to Buttercup that no, we were not going to die in the Fireswamp. In fact, it can be quite nice once you know the 3 terrors of the Fireswamp.
With every new obstacle that I guided her through, I would think, "we should probably turn back before it gets even worse, but damn, I don't want to try to get her down these." So up we would go. Plus, it was awful pretty.
Because it's a circuit hike, aka a loop, if we just kept going, we wouldn't have to cross those nasty sections again. At that point, you then have to do some magical thinking that somehow everything, thousands of feet above you (and the long descent on the other end) won't be as bad. The devil you don't know.
In-between the treachorous ascent and descent, was miles and miles of just regular, up-and-down, hard slogging through deep, slushy snow (like trying to run a marathon in the sand). It wasn't torture, because we had some of the most stunning snow-capped peaks in the world all around us. But it was pretty hard all the same. Every step had to be examined for stability, tested, and then committed to with the result often being having to haul yourself out of the snow after a fall. After a few hours, we finally passed the Rifugio Zsigmondy, our first high alpine Rifigio.
A few miles later, we got lost for about 20 minutes in a section where the snow completely covered the trail markings and I had to go scouting for it. We eventually reached the next Rifugio Pian di Cengia that felt like reaching a secret monestary hidden in the mountains and only reachable by trails carved into the mountainside.
From there we had to slip and slide down a steep snowfield, since our boots had nowhere near enough grip to step down, before traverssing another 1.5 mile slope that had me seriously worried about avalanche.
And of course it was taking a lot more energy and a lot more time than 12 miles normally takes, which is quite a bit already. When we finally reached the Rifuge Locatelli and were ready to descend at last, I honestly wasn't sure Lori would make it down in one piece, or make it at all.
Now, you're probably asking yourself at this time "what kind of psycho sadist of a husband would put his wife (escpecially one as nice as Lori) through all that?"
Well, in my defense...
Okay, yeah. Fair question.
But now was not the time for self-recrimination. I had to short-rope my wife, (blindfolded because she couldn't look) down 4000 feet of ice, on roller skates. Tiime to man up.
Every few hundred feet, it was like the Hillary Step on Everest. We had to problem solve it and then carefully navigate our way down an ice chute together, me promising her that she would (probably) live to see her children again. It took a really, really long time. We finally reached the valley floor and then stumbled the last flat mile to the car, almost giddy with relief as darkness fell. We had been hiking for 10 hours.
Look, don't get me wrong, this is probably a pretty straightforward hike in the summer, or in the fall when it hasn't just snowed 3-feet. You should do it. But on thiis particular occasion, well, it was an adventure.
And only 8 more hikes to go!
We are still married (as of this re-telling).
Ah, the Dolomites!! Definitely in my Top 5 GottaDoItAgain Bucketlist! Sante!