This morning we got a nice taste of French bureaucracy. So yesterday when we took the shuttle to the campground, we checked the earliest departure time the next day, which was 7:30 from the campground. It was a little later than we normally leave but fine. So today we woke up and since we knew the shuttle was small, lined up early to get on the 7:30 shuttle. 45 minutes early. There wasn’t much of a line. When the shuttle arrived and we tried to board, the driver told us to wait, while everyone else with white tickets was allowed to board. Ours were blue as they were purchased from the bus driver the day before. Evidently the white tickets were timed bus tickets so all those people had reserved a spot on the 7:30 bus. Our tickets could only be used after everyone with reservations arrived or didn’t show up. So the blue tickets we purchased yesterday were inferior to these white ones which you could only purchase from the machine at the campground. And get this, apparently there was a way for us to go into the office when it was open, yesterday, and exchange our blue tickets for white ones for the following day but guess who told us this? The same fucking bus driver who said, sorry there’s no room left on this bus you’ll have to wait. There is no signage indicating this, the bus driver yesterday didn’t do anything to explain any of this, and the bus driver today just repeated, what I imagine he has to repeat EVERY FUCKING MORNING, to people like us. But no, it’s not “his fault” it’s just “the rules.” He doesn’t make them, he’s just enforcing them. The fact that he hasn’t taken any initiative to fix what must be such an obvious, daily issue makes him, in my mind, just as much of a problem as this entire stupid, hidden reservation system. I’m glad we stood around for 45 minutes, to be rejected on a bus that we paid for yesterday, only to be driven downhill. We angrily walked the 3 miles back up the road to start our day. Screw them and their shitty bus system. Make a damn sign you lazy sacks. ...

We had a nice campsite near a creek. The tree overhead obscured our view of the glacier, but that’s one thing I never understood. Whenever I’m in my tent, I’m basically sleeping or going to sleep and never admiring the views outside. So I never understood people’s obsession with giving their tent a good view. I’ve also had the experience that the best views usually come with the worst conditions (wind). Anyway I slept great but apparently someone showed up at 11:30 and shined their headlamp everywhere, according to Zoë. ...

Well our plan worked pretty well today. We woke up, had breakfast at our campsite, left everything in our tent, and took all our warm clothes with us to the bus. We rode the bus for 30 minutes from Les Houches to Chamonix, where we purchased a one way lift ticket and met our paragliding guides. As we rode with them up the ski gondola, they conversed with each other in French. Zoë would later say, it was totally fine, but very French and not American where they are very service-oriented, trying to earn a tip. At the top, our guides basically found a free spot to lay out the chutes, strapped us in, and told us to run. Before we took off, my guide pointed out another paraglider and told me she was the world champion in paragliding acrobatics. Pretty cool. ...

Last night we had a nice sunset with an artificial lake providing some photogenic reflections. After snapping some photos though, I went straight to bed. We woke up at 6, in the dark. There were quite a few tents around the lake with us. We left at 7 and headed up the nearby hill where a ski lift topped out. Like the other days, the trail was pretty quiet at 7:00. There were a few people out, but not many. We traversed ski areas, so aside from the nice mountains above us, our immediate surroundings were a bit lackluster. ...

I think I fell asleep around 18:30 last night. I was wiped. I think the transit before the hike must have done me in. Before I passed out, I talked with some TMB hikers. They’re about finished with their loop. Zoë learned more from them after I went to bed but it seems like even amongst the campers, which is who we talked to yesterday, it is uncommon to carry most or all of your food. It sounds like most people were eating meals at restaurants and buying snacks for the next day, one day at a time. I also think, it’s many people’s first backpacking trip. Props to them though, picking something this tough. ...

Well another day, another trail. And a new country. Allow me to fill you in on what you missed. Today is Tuesday. We finished hiking the Alta Via 2 on Saturday afternoon and spent a night in Feltre, Italy. We spent most of Sunday traveling via train, to Martigny, Switzerland. We spent Sunday and Monday night at a campground in Martigny and today we woke up and took trains and a bus to Champex Lac to start our next hike. ...

After hiking the Alta Via 2 for 8 days, here’s what I would recommend: Do visit the Dolomites. Even if it’s not to do the Alta Via 2, they are stunning mountains worth seeing. The people are super nice. No one will make you feel bad for not speaking Italian! I’ve hiked in a lot of places and this is one of the very few where I really get why it is so popular. It is actually very stunning. Budget at least €100/person/day for the hike alone. So for 8 days, expect to spend €800/person. This does not include transportation to/from the AV2. The standard itinerary is about 13 days, which would run you about €1,300/person. You need to arrive at each hut by 18:00 in order to get dinner, so you do not have all available daylight to you for hiking. Expect to pay around €75/night for half board in the huts, another €20 for lunch, and at least €5 on drinks at dinner. I would be more comfortable recommending €120/person/day. Book huts as far in advance as you can. We booked everything in March for our trip in late August and that was almost too late, but thankfully not too late. You’ll end up emailing a bunch of them. It’s really not so bad. I found this website helpful for listing at least the names of all the huts, even if the contact information was out of date.1 Refugio Volpi al Mulaz has an online booking that showed no availability, however when we emailed, they did have availability. This might be fixed by the time you hike, but new challenges might present themselves. Use traileasy to get the GPX file. Specifically look for one that avoids going over Marmolada. This is a mistake our friends made and we almost made. You can see the full itinerary we did on traileasy, here. If you just look up “AV2 gpx” online, you’re likely to come across one that goes over Marmolada. Everything else in the file is likely correct though. If traileasy is still available and free, it’s an excellent planning tool for this. If you’re young and an experienced hiker, you will likely not need via ferrata gear. We didn’t. It might have been useful in adverse weather, but even still, we likely would have been fine. We had one day of rain and nothing technical that day. The via ferrata gear seems mostly designed to help people deal with some moderate exposure. Bring a water filter. A bunch of huts don’t have potable water, so you’ll end up paying a bunch for bottled water otherwise, both when you arrive and when you depart. Bring work/gardening gloves. Best €4 purchase we made ahead of this hike. You’ll use them to scramble up rocks and pull yourself up some of the cables. Pack snacks. Otherwise, you’ll end up paying a lot for them or going hungry. Expect low quality food from the Refugios. Also, if you have big days, expect to be at a caloric deficit. Initially, I thought this would be the one hike I might gain weight on. I ended up losing weight for sure. If you have luggage that you don’t want to take with you, I’d highly recommend the Italian postal service. This only works if you can get a box that will fit all your stuff and if you have some place at the end that will hold it. Our AirBnB host in Feltre offered to hold our boxes for us, which was great. I think we paid about €30 to ship 2 boxes, weighing 20kg in total. We mailed the boxes from Verona to Feltre. Definitely wait until you’re in-country to mail your stuff to the end if you choose to do this, as opposed to mailing it from outside of Italy. Pack light. You don’t need a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, pillow, or most meals. You will absolutely need a sleeping bag liner! If you do carry food and the Refugios let you self cater, this might be a good way to get some significant savings. Check the rules of the huts though before you commit to carrying food you can’t eat. We brought just our outfit for hiking and one extra pair of clothes to change into at night. We only showered on days 3 and 4 where hot showers were free/included. You don’t necessarily need boots, particularly if you are experienced. Trail runners were fine for us. We always use trekking poles. I can’t imagine doing this without them, although I’m sure you could. I’d recommend bringing ear plugs for the huts although I only heard snoring on 2 of the nights. The Dolomites are fairly popular in August and the prices reflect that. 8 days was fine for us. If you’re tempted to go faster to save money, by all means go for it. I think we probably could have done this in 7 days, but any less and we would have been too stressed about missing dinner. We were already a bit pressed for time on days 6 and 7. On the other hand, days 3, 4, and 5 were quite mellow. ...

This was a bit later than I intended, but I still wanted to post my summary of the HRP. I wrote all of this before hiking in the Dolomites, but I didn’t have long enough in front of a computer to post this before we left. We did it, in our own way. We didn’t walk the entire trail, heck we technically didn’t walk all of the PCT either, but we saw enough. Plenty. I have a ton of thoughts about this hike, most of them born out of comparing the HRP to hiking long distance trails in the United States. ...

Our Refugio last night had a great vibe. All the people there had been hiking together as a cohort for some time so they all knew each other. We were the only newcomers. It was cool getting to talk with them and hear from most of them. I will say, our most awkward question is usually, “so how long are you guys in Italy for?”, which inevitably leads to a discussion about us not working for the past 1.5 years, traveling around, and somewhat monopolizing the group conversation with our story. We don’t need the limelight but it often finds us. ...

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. ...