The Journey Begins

When our little hiking group left you last, we had just conquered the West Highlands Way in Scotland.  I was unable to join Kevin and Tim for their journey around Mont Blanc last year, but this year we took on the Dolomites in the Italian Alps and the Alta Via 1 trail.  AV1 is about 75 miles with a lot of up and down, peaking at 2800 meters.  This retro blog will chronicle the highlights of the challenging hike. If you came here for writing perfection, you will be sorely disappointed, as I promise misspellings, misplaced modifiers and much noun-verb tension and hostility.  This account is "based" on actual events and any libel or slanderous statements are done strictly on purpose.  With that in mind, shall we get started?

Getting to Lago di Braies, our starting point is not as easy as it sounds.  Hopefully, Southwest will soon fly direct.  The travel plan was Dallas to Heathrow, Heathrow to Venice, then a car.  The Dallas to Heathrow pilot thought it would be cute to find all the turbulence possible between here and London which makes it MUCH easier to get a little sleep, especially with Kevin and Tim sporting matching PJs

After a restlessful half-night, we landed a bit late and set about the race to the next flight.  Heathrow is slightly larger than the Mall of America, more confusing and has much more retail.  You have trains between terminals and buses which weave their way through the runways and under planes.  We took the bus route and thanks to the crack ground staff made it to our next terminal where Tim was detained by security for muling Little Debbies and Spree into the EU.  He was released in time for the first beer of the trip at 9am London time.  The flight to Venice was uneventful, but in the customs line, Tim met a woman who was born in the same hospital (true story) as he was.  They talked forever about that experience and horticulture as the line moved at the speed of a drunken snail with a defective shell.  After clearing customs, we grabbed our bags, got cash for the trail, oh, except for Tim, who had card issues, but I'm sure that won't be an issue (foreshadowing), met our driver and headed to Lago di Braies.

Lago di Braies is a really nice spot on its own.  Kind of like the slightly less wealthy Italian guy's version of Lake Louise.  We did some prelim route evaluation and sampled the local fare in preparation for kick-off.  

The night was a loud one, with the wariness of the journey turning the room into a SnoreFest of the highest order.  But, night turned to day, as it has a habit of doing and we were off.  Met by a rainy, foreboding morning, we headed counter clockwise around the lake to the area above that looks like a ski run and headed straight up.  It wasn't too cool (yet), so our rain jackets acted as personal saunas, adding to the pleasure of climbing right off the bat.  As we gained altitude, we lost temperature and gained wind.  Of course some of us on the trip seemed to gain wind more then others.....As it started getting really nasty, we saw a mirage in the distance that turned out to be our first stop, our lunch Refugio.  We got out of our wet clothes, kind of, and grabbed some hot food and beverages.  Kevin got the polenta and grilled cheese, which he found out was literally "grilled cheese", but damn good.  During the meal, we talked to some people from Seattle that insisted tomorrow was going to be worse, with rain all day changing to snow.  "yea, right" we all dismissedly thought.

Still chilled, we headed out from lunch for a two hour walk down hill to our night's rifugio.  Walking when shivering, made us look like a horde of zombies.  But, after a while, the blood got flowing again and we returned to a somewhat normal stride.  With time to spare, we decided on a halfway stop for a beverage at the Sennes refugio, which was Tim's favorite for a myriad of reasons.  Fodara was our inn for the night, a very nice, new hut with most of the amenities of a good hotel, especially a great drying room, in room shower, towels and full bedding, all of which would be scarce as the trip progressed. 

Coming up next - if you remember Thursday in Scotland, you'll love Saturday in the Dolomites!