Another great day in the Dolomites. Last night we talked with some Polish students who are studying medicine. They failed their exams so they have to retake them in September so they brought iPads to the hut to study. Apparently 50% of their class failed so it’s not uncommon. Also in Poland, undergrad seems to be combined with medical school, so they do 6 years of school before residency, rather than 8. The funny part was, they had rented a car and driven to the base of the mountain. They had booked this specific hut without doing much research I guess, for 3 nights. They figured it would be a short walk from their car and that they could do day hikes from the hut. They were then greeted with the via ferrata section after a very steep pass. I’m surprised they kept going up.
We also met some Australian twins who were doing the AV2 in something like 13 days. It sounds like they had some amazing food at another hut that has since disappeared. Now the hut foods seem nothing to really write home about. I wish we had a salmon hut.
I woke up at 1:30 sweating again. I opened the window further and tried, unsuccessfully to go back to sleep despite our huge dorm room being incredibly quiet. Sometimes sleep just won’t come. I usually take it to mean I must not be tired enough.
Breakfast was a little light: salami, cheese, bread, and some spreads. I got tea though! At €170 for the night + dinner + breakfast, this one felt expensive.
Our day was going to be our shortest yet, so we took our time leaving. We had a short climb up to a plateau that my friend Eric described as lunar-like. I’d agree. I don’t think it was our favorite view since it was all just rock and no life as far as the eye could see. We walked along the plateau and for a while didn’t see many people. Then we joined a super popular route and there were tons of people. We had a descent down to a road that was packed with people. The trail was narrow and a couple of times, standing off to the side out of the way, I sent rocks falling down towards the path of others below me. I felt bad about it but I couldn’t do much. The trail just wasn’t wide enough. As we descended, the greenery returned and it was beautiful in all directions. Near the bottom of the descent, the crowds finally thinned.
At the road at the bottom there were several hotels and restaurants. We picked a cheaper looking one, bought drinks, and attempted to eat one of our packed lunches. We got an alternative to tortillas since they weren’t available and the alternative is not good. My lunch was not good. Zoë asked me how much, in dollars I hated it. I said $7. So I’d be willing to pay that much to not have to eat this lunch. Everything seems to be more than that so for now, I’ll keep carrying my other 3 lunches.
After lunch we climbed up a small ski slope and undulated along a ridge for a while. The trail was basically a dirt road and there were people everywhere. We walked along the side of Marmolada and got a closer look at the glacier we saw on our descent earlier in the day. It was nice to be back amongst the greenery. The weather was perfect, yet again. We eventually spied our ending point for the day, Rifugio Castiglioni Marmolada, which was adjacent to a lake. It was on the side of a road so there were plenty of people and cars around. We wondered, since you can drive to it, how many people we might meet this evening at the refugio will be hiking.
We checked in at 14:30 and they informed us they had hot showers included, just mind our usage. We hurried upstairs to shower and claim the best bunks we could. I washed my shirt, socks, and underwear in the sink after I showered. My shirt came out so much cleaner with my half hearted attempt at cleaning than it has in all the washing machines we’ve used in the past month. I guess that says something about public washing machines. I put all the clothes back on wet in an attempt to dry them ahead of tomorrow.
Looking ahead it looks like we’ve got a series of shorter days coming up. Tomorrow we’ll be at a hotel, which was our guaranteed free shower halfway through the hike. Then our last two days look to be longer again. We still don’t exactly have things planned out for after this hike. We’re still iterating on a few ideas, but as of today we’re most likely going to jump straight into our next hike after this one, as opposed to taking a break.
2.5 more hours until dinner. I’m hungry already.