The morning of September 12 was beautiful. Day two started from rifugio Biella and would be an eight mile hike to rifugio Fanes. It didn't sound so bad. We were already pretty high up and according to the itinerary, we would only see a 200ft gain in altitude over the day and there would be a great stop for lunch half way.
It turned out to be 3,000ft down for lunch and then 2,200 ft back up...
The day started chilly. We watched the sunrise over the neighboring peaks. Breakfast was a choice of ham, spec, boiled eggs, bread and jam, yogurt, and cereal. I had a couple cups of strong coffee to fortify me for the day.
There had been a frost that night. But the sun was out and I never needed a coat. We started out through rocky meadows blooming with tiny flowers. The trail was not difficult although I was a little stiff from the previous day.
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| I was pretty amazed when one of the group pulled out a little Olympus XA camera. I used to have one of those! It was an awesome camera. This fellow's name is Ron and he lives on the same block as my friend in NYC. He is a "producer," and I think he writes for Saturday Night Live. Super nice guy. |
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| I got excited when we started seeing signs of civilization after a couple hours. Not really recent civilization but it gave me a false hope. |
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| It was a long and winding road... |
We dropped down through cow pastures and a few scattered buildings. This seems to be a pretty popular day hike but most of the traffic seemed to be going up past us.
We were headed for Pederu which is a popular mountain inn and a starting spot to hike up to Fanes. There is a shuttle bus service to this spot and lots of day hikers. The food is good and you think it will be an easy day. In fact I kept meeting rather chubby families on their way down as I was heading up. It was a bit disconcerting as I was sweating buckets.
I made the mistake of ordering schitzel instead of the goulash. The Schnitzel was kind of dry and breaded and pretty much that is all you get. The Goulash was basically gravy and meat with a couple carrots. Very tasty.
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| Rocks and occasional tiny flowers was the view |
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| It was a warm day. It was nice to know I was half way but then again, I was only half way... Last half was better than the first half |
The hike up from Pederu just kept getting steeper. I soon realized that I just needed to take small steps and focus one foot in front of the other. The trees disappeared and we headed into a wandering rock landscape which was beautiful but hard to follow. I kept dropping back and was soon plugging away by myself.
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| All of a sudden we were out of the boulders and into trees. Soon there were bells and then there were cows. If you observe the photo they stack cows on top of each other to say pasture space |
I was following a couple America hikers who were from Pacific Northwest via Texas. They were worn out and kept stopping. I hated to pass them but I also did not want to get terribly behind. Fortunately a good part of the group were waiting for stragglers and the last part of the hike was mostly level and and easy walk.
Everyone in the group was interesting and generally positive guys with a good sense of humor. So the group hikes were interesting. I generally focused on one foot in front of the other and tried not to bore people with farming stories.
Fanes was beautiful. It was in a little valley surrounded by cow pastures. There was even a ice cold lake which I missed swimming in as I went and took a shower and a handful of advil.
The rifugio was more of a resort. There was an outdoor deck and a rustic dining room. Supper was wonderful. I had Spaghetti Carbonara for first course, pork loin with polenta (of course) for second and a raspberry mousse four desert.
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Spaghetti Carbonara with a tasty piece of bacon was my choice for first course.
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It was a small pork loin but the polenta was generous, as usual..
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| Desserts were generally pretty wonderful. Raspberry Mousse with a little crunch waffle. |
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| I thought this was funny. One of the few actual lawns I saw on the hike. The robot mower has ran into a large rock and just dug itself a hole. Probably just exgroundskeeper humor. Sort of like training stoned workstudy kids at the almost broke local university |
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