Tuesday 20th Sept 2011 - Sud Tirol walking day 2
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| The view from my room... |
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| ...and again |
Today was a free day and I'd resolved to get up 'when I was ready' and try to get to the nearest cache to the hotel; one which I knew was quite a way up a mountain.
More snow had fallen overnight and from my estimates the snow level had lowered from a normal 1800m down to about 1600m. Of course I didn't really know this at the time and altitudes/snow lines meant nothing to me as I'd not left the bottom of the valley - I could see some rather big 'hills' all around, with snow 'further up' but it was all lost in the distance, the vastness, the epic scale of the landscape.
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| St. Jacob (I think) - the next village |
Despite a few fizzy pops in the gasthof bar the evening before (my last real drink of the week) I was up bright and early and after a slow breakfast and taking my time to get ready I was all set to go by 10am.
Following the arrow on my GPS I set off on the adventure of a lifetime! I walked a short way up a road leading to another Gasthof and then diverted onto a farmers track and up a fantastically steep path. I say path, but it turned out to be flattened grass where water and sticks had cascaded down the hill during the rain. Eventually I arrived at a road barrier and I was back onto a mountain road - if only I'd walked around!
I stuck to this road for a mile, working my way up the mountain, and taking in my first views from altitude.
I was heading to a cache located near a monument to an aeroplane that had crashed in the Second World War, with loss of half the crew. It was a nice thoughtful place to stop and I actually saw a couple of deer very close by but didn't have my camera handy.
The well kept cache was quickly found and I left a decent length log thanking them for it. It hadn't been found for several months which surprised me - I know it's a little out of the way but I figured the area would be popular with tourist walkers.
I kept walking up the mountain, eventually hitting the snow level and losing all signs of paths or trails. The air was clean, the sun was burning and aside from streams and the wind it was utterly peaceful. I'd not seen a soul for two and a half hours and could easily have been the only person alive.
At this point I had to stop - an altitude of 1790m. Although the snow was very cold underfoot (of course), the sun was baking hot and causing it to melt quite quickly. Consequently the going was treacherous because the grass, under the snow, was very wet and slippery. I didn't want to risk an accident especially with being out on my own.
Incidentally, according to my GPS, at this point I had been out for 2.5 hours, with 1 hour stopping time (rest, food, photos, refill water bag) yet frustratingly I was still only 1 mile from the hotel! I had actually walked 2.8 miles - a testament to the gradient I was walking.
I started to descend along the same route for a while and then diverted along a bridleway heading west.
Dropping down, down and further down, out of the snow the sun once again became more apparent.
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| I patiently waited here for the tractor to return on his loop |
So today I'd had an adventure of my own. I'd found a cache, walked 7.1 miles and climbed 600m.
Best. Day. Ever.
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| The route I walked. North is about 2 o'clock. |
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| Rotated a little, here I've added a red line showing roughly where the snow level really was. |
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| An elevation map of my route. |
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