Month: August 2013

The night we spent in our “bungalow” was not as nice as I expected. The first time I woke up at 1:37am…it was a little cold so that I had to take a blanket. The second time I woke up at 4:00am…it was bloody cold – even with blanket. There are always two blankets per person. The stupid thing is if one places it in the other corner of the room. I thought I will not need it but I was wrong. It took me another 20 minutes to finally decide to get out of my sleeping bag to get the second blanket… For a moment I opened the door and looked at the sky. It was a clear night…the stars were amazing! The night sky is not as good as on La Palma…but it is still very good. Maybe I will go here one summer with my telescope…the only question:”How to get here by car?”  Anyway…getting up this morning at 5:20 was a pain…at least for me. My clothes were cold,  I was tired…and again no coffee this morning. Still I was somehow glad to leave this container and walking finally warmed up my hands and my feet.

For the first 30 minutes we walked through the dark. Then the sun was bright enough. Three hours we walked through a forest and the path always just climbed a little. Probably I am repeating myself…I don’t like walking through the forest because I only see trees…. Anyway…after we reached the first pass on 2200m we walked an old military road down to 1800m. In our 1:50000 map this road looked quite short…but in reality we walked and walked and walked… Finally we climbed up 600m again to 2400m. This was very nice since we had a tremendous view. At the pass we already saw our accommodation for today – just 20 minutes away. The hut lies on a green meadow left and right enclosed by higher mountains. At the hut there are man different animals: They have one big horse and one very very small horse, two donkeys, two dogs, one cat, two goats and one pig  And they all are living together like one big family! It is amazing! In the afternoon we ordered a huge plate with salami, cheese and bread…o m g… I didn’t know that we can eat so much 

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At 6 am we were on the road. When the alarm clock rang at 5:15am I hated myself  It was still quite dark outside and quite cold but what we could see the weather looked good. We left the Rifugio at 6am after heaving a quick “breakfast” (actually it was just biscuit with butter and marmalade). We had no coffee since it was too early…what a great day……. (it is hard to imagine what a strong influence a coffee in the morning can have on ones mood…). We climbed up to a pass on about 2850m. From here we continued 20 minutes to the summit Monte Bellino on about 2900m. Here and there we saw some old bunkers…so this mountain probably played an important role in the war. At the top we made a long break. Now I was glad that I got up so early. We were completely alone – the only thing which disturbed the silence was the wind. Up to the horizon in each direction the sky was dark blue – there was no single cloud. I felt I did not want to leave this place again  Finally, we had to go…we climbed down back to the pass and then descended through a long and broad valley to Rifugio Campo Base on about 1600m.

Since we arrived at the previous hut we had no mobile signal and trying to call Rifugio Campo Base from this hut also didn’t work – no one answered the call…oh yes…and at first we had a wrong phone number. So we were not able to reserve in advance. The hut has about 35 places to sleep – so we were optimistic that there was still a place for us. And again…we were wrong – it was already fully booked. However, we were offered a “container”. The container had 8 beds inside and was very small. Still we decided to take it because we were completely exhausted. In the end we were still lucky since we were the only guests in this container while the other guests had to share a room with 8 other people – and we even paid 4 euro less per person  The dinner was extended to 2 hours! Not because there was so much to eat…just because it took so long to serve it… Personally I did not see many people which were so unorganized, before  But beside that the food was quite good. Tomorrow the weather might get worse…so we decided to get up even earlier in the morning. Our plan is to leave at 5:30am with headlights. Again we will miss the breakfast…and the coffee….great…. But getting up early is the only thing we can do to reduce the risk of getting into bad weather…maybe we worry too much.

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Today there is not much to write. We just walked for one hour to the last possible accommodation before the “great move”. Tomorrow will be a quite long day and there is no hut and no bivaccio in between. So we will start very early tomorrow to reduce the risk of bad weather. We will leave 5:30am. So today we take a break in the sun with lots of food  Our accommodation today only costs 35euro per person – full pension! – and we have a double room! And it is nice! This is great 

The breakfast this morning was formidable. We had different kinds of cornflakes, bread, cookies and coffee of course. The first hour we walked along a lake up to a small village “Ponte Chianale” where we were able to buy bread, cheese and sausage. Buying something in Italian language already works quite good – as long as no further questions result from the order  From here we climbed up about 700m to a pass. From here we saw Monviso one last time. We then followed a long long long road down to the next valley. Our plan for today was to walk to Rif. Meleze. When we arrived in the valley on the main road we still had 1 hour to walk. However, within the last 20 minutes the blue sky turned very dark. It was quite scary. On one side (where we didn’t want to go) the sky was blue. On the other side (of course where we wanted to go) the sky was closed by dark clouds. Somehow this situation reminded us of the day when we arrived in Usseglio – when the thunderstorm started. So we decided to walk to the direction where we actually didn’t want to go – to a small village named Chiesa. It was only a 15 minute walk. During this time we were overtaken by the dark clouds above our heads. When we realized before we were right on the boundary between blue sky and dark sky. So far there was no rain…just clouds. We even made some photos and some jokes about this weird situation – we will be safe in 15 minutes. “orage” the French word for thunderstorm is one of the first words we learnt in France at the beginning of our tour. So we created the word play “l’orage der Arsch” (“Arsch” is the German word for ass)  . We checked the weather reports to be sure (the Italian one, the German one and the Italian map for extreme weather). Everything was fine…and despite that it was just 1pm. Just seconds later a loud kaboom came from the dark clouds. Then a heavy rain started. We ran like idiots until we reached a mountain hut in the village nearby. We were quite glad that we again escaped the thunderstorm in the last second. Outside the heavy rain and thunder party started…and lasted only for 20 minutes. Then it was gone as fast as it came before. Unfortunately the mountain hut was already fully booked. So we had to find another accommodation for tonight – probably because it was Saturday. By phone we called another hut to make sure there is still a place left for us. This was difficult since the owner only spoke Italian and French. Actually no problem but via mobile phone and a bad connection the communication was quite exhausting. Anyway there was still a free room and so we walked to Chiazale about another hour. One thing to mention is that we passed another small village named “Celle” – actually the name of the village where I was born in Germany  Anyway…the room was ok and the dinner as well.After this experience with the weather we descided to split the path planned for tomorrow in two days. The weather forecast does not look so nice for tomorrow.

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Today we walked above 2500m for almost 5 hours. Our destination for today was Rifugio Martre where we reserved a room with shower The path today led us below the Monviso along a very huge area on 2600m. We passed multiple lakes an saw many different flowers. It is very nice to wake up at 2800m and just start to walk without any ascent on more or less the same altitude  The sun was again very strong up here – I think when we are back we will be close to black  Our accommodation for today was absolutely great. I think the owner was a star cook in his prior life. He served things I never heard before – which were absolutely great. The desert was a kind of cake with chocolate and cheese. This sounded strange but was wonderful. Tomorrow we continue to walk to the sea. The next two days we will need to pass over to the next mountain group. Hopefully the mobile signal will be better there. Then we can post some photos.