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Month: July 2013

Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 21: Pialpetta – Balme

Today I wish I would have exchange my ice axe by a bush knife… Almost the whole path led through forest and bushes. There are probably many hiking people who like exactly this kind of path – but I don’t. In fact I am glad I didn’t catch any ticks this time! Compared to yesterday I can now say that walking 1000m upwards is different from walking up 1500m…this time the ascending didn’t want to come to an end… I don’t like writing negative about the gta or the via alpina. After this day however I at least have to say that I am disappointed from this part of the path. Nobody seems to care about this part of the path – neither the marking, nor the path itself. We lost the path two times today walking into a wrong direction. Furthermore the path was once no longer there due to erosion and parts of the path were no longer recognizable since many plants grew over it. After 8 hours and 10 minutes we finally arrived at our destination for today – Posto Tappa Les Montagnards. The food served here was exclusive and absolutely great :)

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Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 20: Ceresole Reale – Pialpetta

Yeesss!We finally left Ceresole Reale after almost three days of bad weather. It turned out that it was good to wait for better weather since the path was partly steep and much easier in dry conditions. This afternoon we arrived in Pialpetta. I guess there is not much to say about Pialpetta despite that it feels like we arrived in deep Italy :) We got up at 6am today and had breakfast… There was a kind of cookie offered for breakfast which was so hard that even putting it into the coffee didn’t help much :D Probably they were from last winter… At about 10am we arrived at the top of today – Passo Crocette at 2641m. Here we had a long break. Looking back we were able to see Ceresole Reale one last time – luckily :) We then climbed down to Pialpetta in about 3 hours. Our accommodation today is one of the two “Posto Tappa” houses around. Tomorrow we are heading for Balme – another quite small village in the middle of nowhere ;)

Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 17: Rifugio G. Muzio – Ceresole Reale

After a two hour descent we reached Ceresole Reale – a very small village in the middle of nowhere. The sun was shining this morning. According to wikipedia Ceresole Reale has about 180 citizens – so as long as there is at least a wikipedia entry it can’t be too far off :) Our guide recently told us this is the main “city” in the valley. I am trying to imagine the other villages… After some searching we found a very small supermarket. Tonight we stay at Albergo Aquilla Alpina – a small pension. On our way down to this village we walked along the Lago di Ceresole Reale. This lake is quite nice…but it could be much nicer if it would not be surrounded by a fence with lots of warning signs. Maybe this is because the high voltage power line directly crosses the lake? Personally I feel a little depressed in this village. In all directions high mountains rise up into the sky…and here is nothing else around but a few small houses. But maybe it is just because of the clouds hanging all around… Outside the cumulus clouds are getting bigger and bigger and it is just a question of time until the rain will start – a good time to take some sleep :)

Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 16: Rifugio Tetras Lyre – Rifguio G. Muzio

What a long day. Our feet hurt and we don’t want to move anymore – today :) Actually we planned  to walk only half a day after the Gran Paradiso. We wanted to sleep at Rif. Citta di Chivasso and we thought arriving at about 2pm on a Tuesday would be sufficient to get two places to sleep without prior reservation. So this assumption was wrong…when we arrived the owner told us that the hut is already completely booked. Up to this point the path was absolutely great. First we climbed up a nice and narrow mountain path from 2000m to about 2800m. There we had a long break. We were able to see the Gran Paradiso from here. From there we walked down 400m and then continued through a very wide and long valley. There we saw many different flowers and lakes all around. When the hut owner told us that the hut is already booked I think we looked quite stupid… We had to walk down to the next hut approx. 1000m below the other one. The path was a long and boring road… For some time the weather has been expected to change to rain and thunderstorm. And when we looked up to the sky it was obvious that it was only a question of hours before the storm will start. So we hurried like idiots down the long road to the next Rifugio. Two hours before the storm we finally arrived… This is still enough time but on the other hand we didn’t know when it is going to start… I guess every friend of mountaineering knows this feeling… In the end we ordered half a liter of wine to finish this day.

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Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 15: Gran Paradiso

Today we got up at 4am… It was still dark when we started to Gran Paradiso. There were quite a lot of people which had the same destination today… At the beginning we were quite fast. At about 3700m my feet became quite cold – even if we were moving all the time… Lisa had the same problem. Exactly the same we experienced last year when we climbed the Finsteraarhorn. There we thought it was just because it was terribly cold that morning. This morning was different and still we had cold feet. Probably our shoes have a bad temperature isolation…anyway :) Up to the last 100m going upwards was like taking a walk in the snow :) The glacier was completely covered with snow and everything was frozen. So we had no troubles with crevasses. Also the height we almost didn’t feel. The last 100m were very steep and the panorama to the other side opened. We were able to see the Monte Rosa Massife and the Matterhorn. Unfortunately the summit was quite crowded. At the very top is a Madonna statue located. A quite narrow ridge leads to this statue and all the time people want to go to and away from the Madonna. From the ridge it goes downwards almost vertically…hard to say how far but if one falls down he won’t survive for sure. This was the worst part but we finally made it to the Madonna statue and back :) The descent was very quick and much easier. Meanwhile the sun came out and made the snow  getting soft so that we could partly slide down the way. At 12 o’clock we were back at the hut and enjoyed some pasta. After another hour in the sun we climbed down to a small Rifugio on 2000m. From here we will continue tomorrow :)

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