On the edge of your seats, Dear Reader? Last night Jim and I agreed to go all the way to Rifugio Pian de Fontana today but…did we conquer the Forcella de Zita Sud? Or did we decide to exit the Alta Via 1 by another route?
I woke at 5:00 a.m. in the bunk room at Passo Duran C. Tomé, cozy in my pile of blankets. Um, did we leave our clothes hanging outside overnight? Are they still damp? Yes and yes. I put on my hiking pants, bra, shirt, got back into bed, and they dried just fine with my body heat. Now I could get back to my job of worrying about today’s hike.
Erin and Emily joined us for a simple breakfast, no meat or hot food, but always cake, yogurt in a big bowl, granola/muesli, cheese, bread and coffee. Jim and a hiker from Munich pored over the maps of today’s route and bailout points. It would be our longest mileage day (10.75 miles) but the weather looked very good, so the only thing that could stop us from getting all the way to Pian de Fontana was my case of nerves.
After a mile the AV1 turned onto the edge of a pasture. We greeted the resident cows and entered the woods of Parco Nazionale della Dolomiti Bellunesi. Between Malga Moschesin and Rifugio Pramparet is the bailout point. I had 6 miles to think about it.
The cool conifer forest and mossy rocks were soothing, like familiar ground high in the Great Smoky Mountains. The trail was quite steep. I saw daylight break through an open space and stopped to put on the first sunscreen layer of the day. Emily and Erin caught up, also lathered on sunscreen, and passed us.
The trail switchbacked to Forcella Dagarei, undulating in and out of tree cover and shadows of the high peaks. As the sun rose higher, the bright white exposed scree fields below Cime della Forzelete took all our concentration to stay on track. Views across the valley were stunning, a few wispy clouds, not hot yet but that would come soon enough.
Peaks of Castello di Moschesin
Let’s stop and look at these Campanula morettiana
(and a convenient pee stop behind the building)
We pushed on to Forcella del Moschesin, an expansive grassy saddle where confusion reigned. One sign indicated straight to Rifugio Pramparet, which is on a side trail of the AV1. We should turn right here…we think? Another sign pointed left to Malga Pramper, a smaller accommodation that also serves food.
This is the bailout point descending to Forno di Zoldo at a paved road with bus service. If Jim and I take this path we’ll skip Forcella de Zita Sud and our hike ends today. Decision time: let’s keep going.
Our paper map and GAIA were not much help at this level of detail. Deciding that we were still on the AV1, not the turnoff to Rifugio Pramparet, we retraced our steps to the abandoned building we had seen and, sure enough, we had missed a turn.
Cima de PramperA narrow track behind the old barracks building led straight up a moderate hill, switchbacked down and intersected another narrow track (no signage) and…we ran straight into Erin and Emily.
Whew, we were glad to see them! As we arrived at the true intersection to bypass Rifugo Pramparet, we got our bearings straight and talked (again) about Forcella di Zita Sud. Steve and Emily were ahead of everyone and they had all agreed to meet up and tackle the “knife edge” together. Psychological/emotional support was important for me and this kindness warmed my heart!
I wanted Jim to stay extra close, which wasn’t easy with my slow pace going up, but he kept within sight and looked back often. My heart pounded, not just from physical exertion. I felt truly afraid and anxious for the unknown ahead, but I also trusted the people who were with me.
A pause for breath at a small saddle named Portela del PiazedelHmmm…clouds were forming and moving up towards us. The wind picked up and thunder rumbled. One of my fears was coming true, getting caught in a storm! But no time to worry or slow down: adrenaline pushed me up the mountain.
Faster, faster!Emily and Erin quickly conquered the rock scramble, and Jim and I were close behind. Our hiker bubble waited for us and then it was a race to the top. We moved quickly across the “knife edge” without stopping.
It was all over in a couple of minutes. Jim and I looked wide-eyed at each other. After all our (my) angst and doubt, was that all there is to it?? The rock scramble was short and the "knife edge" was broad enough to feel safe. Many times we’ve navigated more dangerous terrain (looking at you, Mount Katahdin). Jim shrugged. “If we had not read the guidebooks we would have just said, ‘That was a bit tricky,’ and moved on instead of stressing about it all day.” As a feeling of relief flooded through me, we laughed at the buildup and took photos and laughed some more.
Don’t look back...
The celebration was cut short because we were still in an exposed area. Time to quickly hustle down to Rifugio Pian de Fontana and congratulate ourselves there.
Somehow we missed the fine print description of the descent. This was not a leisurely saunter down the valley. Stats for this knee-quaking downhill: distance from Zita Sud to the rifugio was 3.5 kilometers, elevation loss was 2,530 feet, took us over 2 hours. Everyone quickly moved ahead except Jim and me and Erin. (She said she was content going at a slower pace, or was she just keeping an eye on us?)
Long stretches of slippery scree slowed our progress to a crawl. Jim fell once and I fell two times, flat on my back. Erin deadpanned, “Don’t make me do medicine today, guys.”
We descended over a pronounced lip-type rock edge and saw that we were on a sheep track in grassy, rutted pastures. We passed a sign that warned, “Hey, it’s gonna get steep now, y’all!” as though we were just skipping along until then. There were cable assists in all the wrong places.
That speck in the center is Rifugio Pian de Fontana, miles away from any roadThere is a helipad for emergencies
Perched on the precipitous edge of a lush hanging valley, the rifigio consists of four stone buildings and a couple of small wooden storage buildings. The kitchen/dining room is the largest, plus three stone bunkhouses. Generator electricity, no wifi, cash only, simple but ample food, and plenty of soft drinks, beer and grappa (which we sampled after dinner.) This rustic gem was our favorite of our Alta Via 1 adventure.
Our bunkhouse on the hillOur stone building is quite old, one room with 5 bunk beds, a loft with 3 beds, one bathroom and a cold water shower. I chose the bottom bunk near the window, Jim above. Poor guy, his bunk was precarious, the supporting slats/boards kept popping out, and a too-thin mattress. He did not have a good night’s rest.
Since there are no roads to the rifugio, supplies are lifted up via a dedicated cable car. The owner told me she walks down to town to place her order and sometimes rides back up to the rifugio with the supplies. (Say what???)
We all crowded around the picnic tables on the deck to celebrate the summit and complain about the punishing descent. Euphoria washed over everyone. There was still one more day to hike, but the hard part was literally behind us! After a while I grew tired of the chatter and found a place by the bunkhouses to sit on the grass and write. I hadn’t had many quiet moments like this during hike days.
Excerpt from my trail journal: “I’m sitting on the grassy slope behind the kitchen/dining room building of Rifugio Pian de Fontana. Smoke is rising from a stove pipe in the roof as dinner is being prepared. Most hikers, including our bubble, are toasting to surviving the day. A few, like me, are enjoying a quiet moment unwinding. We are surrounded by granite peaks, most with spotty patches of conifers/trees, and as far as I can see down the valley to the left there are no signs of humans. The sun is going down behind me. Didn’t think I would actually be here. Surreal.”
At dinner, Jim and I sat with a young Italian couple who were out for a few days climbing via ferrata routes and an older-than-us Australian couple who had hiked the TMB just prior to the AV1. (“Practice,” they said.) The gregarious Italians gave us food tips on what to eat when we move on to Florence and Rome after our hike. (A lampredotto sandwich, the fourth stomach of a cow, is a street food delicacy that Jim indulged in Florence.)
At the end of the meal, Jim wanted to try some grappa. The Australians bowed out, but the Italian couple was eager to teach us. We invited the the young man serving to join in.
where everyone around the table is a friend
“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
~Ed Viesturs
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