Friday June 21, Pozza di Fassa to Rifugio Passo delle Selle
Our destination for Friday was Rifugio Passo delle Selle, the highest elevation refuge of our trip. We headed east out of Pozza di Fassa, past the weirdest house painting I've seen in Europe to date. I routinely photograph organs inside churches, but even the cherubs hovering around organs inside churches aren't this phantasmagoric...
A little further up the road, we spotted out first Edelweiss:
Eventually we shifted from road to trail. The trail we initially followed offered Ladin legends along the way. Note the similarity between the profile on the Conturina sign and the statue we saw yesterday outside the Ladin Museum:
The stories were in Italian, English, and Ladin; zoom in to read about Ciadina, who didn't wait for years for her betrothed to return home from battle, so naturally was punished.
Carved tree trunks accompanied some of the stories, although I couldn't figure out which story involved l'Orc...
Looking back into the Fassa valley at Pozza:
Eventually our route took us up a hillside and into unexpectedly lush woods:
The plants were thriving...
...except for the trees devastated by bark beetles.
Eventually we reached Rifugio Taramelli. Rain clouds were looming, so we sat just long enough to split an apple and a nut bar, then continued up the trail.
Until this point, the most acrophobically challenging moments of this trip were on gondola lifts rocking in the wind high above the ground. Then we got to the trail above Rifugio Taramelli.
Late season snow has to go somewhere when it melts, and what must usually be a trickle on the trail was, on Friday, a rapid waterfall cascading down the hill. The first crossing, in the foreground of the photo below, was fine, but the one past it was too wide and fast for me to feel stable crossing...
...so we hiked uphill, off trail, to find a narrower, more protected spot to cross. Here's S, already on the other side, hefting a huge rock to give me a place to step mid-creek, since the gap was too wide for me to do in one step.
A few tears were shed, but I eventually made it across, thanks to this fabulously empathetic human:
We continued up the hill, soon meeting up with the trail again. Then we came to the next waterfall crossing, wide and white and steep. First I tried running away by clinging to the hillside and clambering up and away from the water. After assessing the situation from above, and finding no alternatives on our map, I slid back down on my butt, hiked down the trail a bit, and proposed crossing at a narrower spot, which S insisted was far less protected, steeper, and more dangerous. So we hiked back up to the waterfall crossing, and after another ten minutes of false starts and more tears, with much coaxing and demo-ing from S, I finally gave up trying to find rocks to cross on, and immersed my boots into the deepest part of the water as far from the down-stream edge of the trail as I could manage. The result was that my boots were drenched, but I neither slipped nor got swept down the hill.
We spent a few minutes regrouping...
...then, with rain clouds still looming, continued up the trail. There were no significant challenges after that, just a steep ascent.
...and some soggy snow to cross.
At last, the welcome sight of Rifugio Passo delle Selle appeared above us:
Inside the refuge, it was bright and warm and dry. The hosts lit the Kachelofen so we could dry out our boots overnight, and we fed our nerves with coffee, the richest hot chocolate ever, and a piece of Apfelstrudel.
In contrast to our visit to Rifugio Antermoia, Rifugio Passo delle Selle was mostly empty--just six travelers staying overnight, including us. Our room had five beds in it, but we had it all to ourselves.
A room with a view:
At dinner, the refuge won the prize for fanciest food in scarcest environment.
The coasters indicated a Bavarian connection:
Potato cream soup with olive oil drizzle, croutons, and chive blossoms:
We were now in polenta-with-melted-cheese territory--the Dolomite equivalent of Bavaria's Käsespätzle mit gerösteten Zwiebeln. The artsy red accents on the plate were pureed beets; the green was pickled rosemary.
 |
| That's a lotta cheese... |
The palette cleanser before dessert was a grappa-infused grape. Oh my.
The wind was already strong when we arrived, and it continued to strengthen over the evening. We were used to gusty passes--wind often blows up from one direction and down the other--but this was stronger than anything we'd experienced before, a combination of Mediterranean weather instability and sriroco blowing Saharan sand northward.
The haze started to clear a bit later...
...before storms rolled back in overnight. Lesson learned: don't mess with thunderstorms in the Alps.
The next morning, the skies were clear, breezes were gentle, and the sandy haze that had been hanging over the Dolomites for the past few days was gone.
Ta da! 6.9 miles, 4,750 ft elevation gain, two acrophobia-defying waterfall crossings, and one sriroco.
No comments:
Post a Comment