September 12 we hiked from Biella to Fanes, day 2 of my Alta Via One

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

 

Rocks and occasional tiny flowers was the view

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.

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.

Spaghetti Carbonara with a tasty piece of bacon was my choice for first course. 

 

It was a small pork loin but the polenta was generous, as usual..

 

Desserts were generally pretty wonderful. Raspberry Mousse with a little crunch waffle.

 

 

 

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

 

 

I return home from my Dolomite Adventure and describe the start of the trip in a rambling and incoherent manner

I am back from my life adventure...

Of course I caught something in New York City and am exhausted. I returned Thursday evening at 9 p.m. Friday I attempted to reintegrate myself into farm life. It has been raining. I drove around and looked at fields, cleaned out my pickup, tried to come up with a plan. Saturday I raked wet hay and attempted to make feed. Have found it a bit difficult to get focused.

 

 

Who says you can't go home again? But do you want to go home again... Here I am driving my Fiat tractor raking hay. I saw several of these Fiats in Italy. Lovely shade of Orange.

My previous post from the Dolomites was day three I think. Today is more of the set up for the main hike. I have to note that the pictures are loaded in reverse order so this post is confusing as usual.

There turned out to be something like 24 of us. We are all somehow connected to the trip organizer. By the end of the trip people called us the "Bretts," but said it with a charming Italian accent, accompanied with a chuckle.

There were five of us over 60. A couple college friends of Brett, a couple friends he met when he spent a season in Antarctica, four people from his block in NYC, and other random guys who have various connections. It was a determined lot, but everyone had a pretty good sense of humor.

We all met up in San Vito. It is a mountain town with a population of around 1900 residents. It is stretched out along the SS51 Alemagna road. We were doing the Alta Via One trail through the Dolomites so it is a pretty well established and famous route.

The plan was to say at a local hotel, (Hotel Villa Trieste) to get organized do the hike, then meet back up at the hotel and go off in our various directions. 

The first problem was actually finding a restaurant that would hold all 25 of us. Our wonderful receptionist at the Hotel Villa Trieste called around and found an event hall that would make us pizza. She said it used to be a disco and they had turned it into an even center.

"I was there for a wedding and I went in to the restroom and all of a sudden I remembered when I was young and it was a disco, (the restrooms are exactly the same), she exclaimed. (this is a paraphrase as she talked super fast)

So Brett and I hiked a mile and a half in the rain to find it. Great people. They were getting ready for a wedding but opened up our kitchen for us. Turned out it was the owners daughter getting married. We congratulated the groom. A great time was had by all. Pizza bill for 24 people was like $90...

 

Everything is scenic in San Vito. This the view out of our hotel room.

 

The day of the hike we woke up to rain. As an Oregonian I was not daunted, plus I had rain gear. Where would I rather be? Being rained on in Oregon worrying about if I was going to get the annual ryegrass planted and the Teff baled or in Italy wondering if I was going to die on a slippery Dolomite goat trail?

 

The local grocery store had a nice selection of Chocolate. Chocolate bars do not hold up well in a backpack when it is 80 degrees in the sun. We packed a lunch for our first day of hiking and used the local grocery store for supplies. It took a bit of communication but Italian grocery stores are set up pretty well for fresh vegetables and bread. 

 

 

 Most hotels and Rifugio's we stayed at provided breakfast. Bread, ham, Spec (which I don't really understand), boiled egg, coffee, plus yoghurt and cereal. We stayed at Hotel Villa Trieste which would also cook you eggs to order. 

 

 

This is Clift... He proved to be a bit of a character. An old friend of my friend Brett. We were part of the small group of past 60 adventurers. He tended to stop often and exclaim about the view and then take a picture. At this point he is exclaiming, "well will you look at that! We gotta take a picture! Isn't this something else!" He maintained that enthusiasm though out the trip...

 

Sad to say my pictures loaded in reverse order and I was too lazy to fix them. This is the location of the hotel we stayed at in San Vito. Hotel Villa Trieste is about a half mile or so from the bus stop. Simple, and not real expensive, but with an awesome breakfast. The nice girl in the kitchen (her mom runs the hotel) will fix you eggs to order and speaks English very well. It is quiet and friendly and the staff was happy to help, finding restaurants when everything is closed, finding transportation, info on local attractions, AND they were willing to store our extra bags while we were hiking. (Trying to keep packs under 20lbs.) I had planned on checking the weather and if we had a good 10 day forecast I was going to store my rain gear. Since it was raining that very day, I opted for the weight at the convenience of staying dry. I used my rain c 

This is the view from the bus stop in San Vito di Cadore. We arrived in comfortable Oregon conditions. Too warm for a rain coat, and wet enough to get a shiver. 

This is the bus trip to San Vito. Imagine the narrowest mountain roads in Colorado and Oregon, but paved and with steady high speed traffic, busses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles all driving at breakneck speed. The horn is almost as important as brakes!

 

My friend Brett and I arrived in Venice, Italy September 9. We found Brett's friend Clift sitting on a cement block waiting for the bus. Clift is a nice guy. He is a dentist in real life. We all took a bus to San Vito di Cadore. San Vito is a small town in the Dolomites at over 3,000 feet. It started as a lumber and agricultural town but has become more tourist focused. There is skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer with nearby lakes, and WWI sites. We found our hotel, which was a bit of a walk from the bus stop, met up with some fellow travelers and looked for food. 

There was one little pizza place open. I wish I would have gotten a photo of the lady who ran it. She was older and wiry and a certified "firecracker." Very little English and we have very little Italian, and she tended to yell at people. But, we had some very excellent pizza. This is all thin and crispy crust pizza. Hawaiian pizza is greatly frowned on. Clift kept very politely asking for napkins and more water. Our proprietress completely ignored him. 

"How do you get a water around here?" said Clift...

And every completely ignored him... 

There was a cooler and the locals just took whatever drinks they wanted out of the cooler and it all seemed to work.

I believe it was called the Ristorante Pizzeria Paradiso