Dinner was mediocre last night. We sat with a Belgian couple who were doing some prepared itinerary for 4 days in the opposite direction to us. Apparently the guy was carrying a full pack because he was preparing for a 4 week backpacking trip the following year. Being old seems hard.
We thought we had the 4 bed room to ourselves last night. I went to sleep early, around 20:00 because I was wiped. Some guys showed up at 20:30 last night, apparently doing the same big day we did. Except we knew our day was big so we kept it moving and took brief breaks. They must have done something different and missed dinner as a result.
It was hot last night. I was in my liner only and had to take off my pants, despite the window being open. We have to use a sleeping bag liner in bed every night because the sheets are not laundered. I think it must have been because we at a much lower elevation. In any case, that was the first night I didn’t use any blankets at all.
We had a big day ahead of us so we got to breakfast right as it started. We talked with some other folks from Seattle at breakfast. We were the first ones to leave the Refugio at 7:15.
We started off in a forest and a drizzle began to fall on us. I hoped it wouldn’t turn into rain. I covered my camera with a shower cap but didn’t do any other changes for the rain. Soon enough, it stopped. We started climbing very directly up to a pass. It made me quite sweaty. At the top, I stood in a breeze trying, unsuccessfully to dry my shirt off. Zoë arrived before I had made much progress.
The descent started off pretty steep. We were still on crappy trail so the going was slow. Eventually the trail leveled out and we traversed the hills, rolling up one and down the other side. It was quite humid on this side of the pass so I continued to get even wetter. I remembered my ass started chafing yesterday so I applied some lubricant to prevent further agony.
We reached some other turning point and descended down a steep, crappy trail. It was steep nearly the whole way down, which always makes you worried when it’s early in the day. If it’s later, screw it, wreck the legs. Early though, you hope you can make it through the whole day.
At the bottom, we reached our first Refuge after 3.5 hours. We ordered some drinks to take a quick break. We filled up our water bottles in their bathroom and left soon after. We left and had a glorious (dirt) road walk for a couple of miles. The going was fast and easy. When the road ended, it was noon and we decided to eat lunch before our climb.
I should mention at this point, we had seen no one on the trail so far. People say the Dolomites are packed in August but we hadn’t seen anyone, outside of when we were down at the road by the Refugio. The climb after lunch was expectedly steep. We had some nice via ferrata sections that were short. It’s difficult for us to transition back and forth back and forth from the via ferrata to steep hiking since it requires us to swap gear, which usually takes a minute and requires us to take off our packs. After the second cable section, we kept our hiking poles stashed for too long, expecting more cables. When none arrived, we eventually stashed our gardening gloves and got our poles back out.
The climb up from lunch took us around 2 hours. At the top, it was quite windy. We had seen 2 hikers ahead of us on the climb and they would be the only people we would see all day. At the top was a sign which told us our Refugio, Boz, was 4.5 hours away. Seeing as it was 14:30, we’d have just enough time to get there by 18:00 if we met the times. After the pass, we took a brief snack break and continued on. We passed the two hikers on a descent who were moving pretty slowly. I thought they might be injured but I think that was just their normal pace.
After the hikers, we circled around a valley, high above it. 90 minutes after arriving to the valley via the pass, we exited via another pass on the other side. There weren’t any other signs updating us on our progress so we had no idea if we were ahead, behind, or on track for arrival at 18:00.
We came across a nice waterfall with a pool at the base and I opted for a swim. The delay was worth it and I’m glad Zoë told me to go for it. I always feel much better after a dip.
Near the end of our day, I spied what I assumed must be our refuge. I measured our progress against our closing distance to it. Fortunately, ours turned out to be even closer than that building.
As we crested our final climb for the day, the clouds really started to roll in. With not long to go, I thought we were going to get soaked in the last half mile. Thankfully the rain held and we arrived at the hut at 17:15, with plenty of time before dinner. The two hikers we passed didn’t arrive until after dinner, at 19:30.