Tag: gta

We only walked about 3 hours to Rif. Vulpot on a mountain road. We arrived at 11:30 when the weather still looked very nice. We decided to stay here since the last days were quite long. Within 2 hours the blue sky was gone and it started to rain. So it turned out to be a good decision to stay.

The path upwards was very nice today. We climbed ~1000m up and then used a road down again to Usseglio. This is the short description of today. However today was a quite scary day. On our way upwards we passed a small bivaccio on about 2200m. We wanted to find out if it is open but it seemed to be locked from inside. Suddenly a man opened from inside – it was already about 9:30 in the morning – and said good morning  And then a woman came out of the bivaccio…I think they had an amazing night  The forecast for today said heavy rain and probably thunderstorm. At the bivaccio the weather still looked ok. We continued to the highest point. A thick cloud was blown above the pass and it suddenly became foggy and cold. This was a very strange feeling since the sun was warm and comfortable minutes ago. Up there we saw some ibexes in the fog…little scary. Since we were not able to see the clouds anymore, because we were in the middle of a big one, it was really hard to tell if there was a thunderstorm coming or not – especially since it was the forecast for the afternoon. So we hurried downwards to the next Alp. It was astonishing to see what the human body can do under stress. When we arrived at the Alp we asked for the weather. We only understood some words but the message was: no storm for the next hours. So we continued downwards. We decided to take the road since the original descent of the Via Alpina was quite steep – and the weather was still unstable. We arrived in the valley and further followed the road towards Usseglio. It was very hot and the cumulus clouds were already very high. It was again just a question of time until the storm was going to start. So we hurried…again. In a small village approx. 5 km before our destination the thunderstorm began. Naively we thought that we will find a place to stay in such a case – but in fact it was hard to find something. There was no bar, no restaurant and no single hotel or pension. The village was like dead. The only bus stop didn’t have any time table – and the church was closed. We thought about stopping a car …but there was no car. The thunders became quite loud and the whole situation seemed too bad to be true. Then – suddenly – a small bus came around the corner. It was the regular bus to Usseglio which drives just a few times per day. We ran after the bus and waved like idiots. It stopped and we were allowed to enter. The busdriver opened the window – I think after this day we were stinking like beevers  – and he didn’t event want us to buy a ticket. So we finally arrived safely in Usseglio – the last 5km by bus.

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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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  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