St. Ulrich to Trieste, Day 6 - Domegge di Cadore to Rifugio Giaf

Friday June 26, Domegge di Cadore to Rifugio Giaf

When we checked into our hotel in Domegge, the host said "you can help yourself to breakfast tomorrow morning in the room just thattaway." We hadn't anticipated breakfast at this establishment, so it was nice to learn it was included. We knew we were well into in the land of sweet, empty-carbs breakfast, but figured that and a cup of milk would be a decent start. 

With that in mind, we only bought trail snacks at the Lidl that night. You can see where this is going.

"Breakfast" was, alas, so much of a misnomer that we regretted it having been mentioned at all. Juice boxes and plastic-wrapped squishy buns do not an energized hiker make.

Thus we started our day with an unplanned detour. We couldn't afford the 3.6-mile RT trek back to Lidl, so we tried a nearby bakery hoping for a Vollkornsemmel or hunk of cheesecake. Alas, Italy is not Germany. The bakery made only tiny, precious, empty-carb works of art. Alas. I figured I could at least top those empty carbs off with our remaining chunk of protein bar from the day before--but S had deemed it un-save-worthy and thrown it out. And so we began our hike, one of us cheerfully caffeinated, the other hungry and pissed off. 

We crossed the bridge over Lago di Centro Cadore, a reservoir created in the 1950s by damming the Piave River, and probably part of the reason these ancient towns are now so car-centric. 

Pretty pretty

Then it was just a 4,450' tromp uphill over 7.5 miles, from woods to scrub to scree.

Early on, we deftly crossed the creek in the photo below, stepping from block to block. Once we had crossed, we saw a sign on the other side that sternly warned "do NOT walk in the water!", presumably because the riverbed sloped steeply downward to the left, and no one wants to get swept away by a waterfall. Someday the gods of stern warnings will show us signs before we traverse the trail instead of after. In any case, we obviously survived.

Woodpecker, one of several carved sculptures along the road 

As we hiked up the road, we encountered multiple trucks and Baggerladder cutting and stacking trees, either routine maintenance or bark beetle damage control.

About six miles in, we took a left near Rifugio Padova... 

...and joined the Alta Via 6.

We paused on a tree stump for a small lunch, then continued upward in the increasing heat as woods yielded to sunnier, scrubbier trails. Note the saw-toothy mountains; we had admired them from afar for the past two days, and today we were crossing them.

Looking back whence we came

We had been stopping along the trail frequently over the day to cool down, rehydrate, and ingest snacks.

Lady slipper!

The last quarter mile up was scree. Hiking up the scree field was fine, as the slopes were shallow and blocked in enough that the acrophobic brain felt safe.

A few splotches of snow, and a welcome cooling breeze

A sign said there's a bivouac somewhere up thattaway

Nearly at the top of the saddle...

Hiking down was another matter. From the saddle, Forcella Scodavacca, we still had 2,100' down, across 1.6 miles, to Rifugio Giaf. The acrophobe goes down steep, exposed scree verrrrry slowly, because the views are disorienting, so the descent took a while. No photos, because my brain and knees were busy, but eventually the scree yielded to scrub and then woods. Even in the woods, it was a steep descent. Trail runners happily jogged past us, jumping from rock to rock without a care in the world. 

When we finally pulled into Rifugio Giaf, we were beat. Our host took one look at us and asked if we wanted a drink before checking in, so we sat outside with dozens of Alpine Club hikers (Giaf is on the Alta Via 6) and savored Sprudel and Apfelschorle before dinner.

We had booked so far in advance that we managed to land a small private room, where high up on the wall, we had a view.

Ta da! 10.2 miles, 4,700' up, 2,500' down, 100% acrophobe approved--but oof, the heat wiped us out. Temps were supposed to be even hotter that weekend, so we mapped out an abbreviated route for the next day, and gave ourselves permission for the next few days to invoke the "weather emergency clause" in our Rules of Walking, which allows mass transit during extreme weather (not that there's mass transit up in these here hills).