Rif. Vallaccia to Pozza di Fassa
Thursday, July 13
Owing to an early time to bed, we were able to get up properly early on the morning of July 13th - no more making up for a late arrival time. Outside, the sky was perfectly clear - no hint of any bad weather... at least for the moment.
Today we were hoping to try and climb our second ferrata - the via ferrata Franco Gadotti. This ferrata was close by to our rifugio, and it was of the right grade (a grade 2 - one step up from our introductory grade 1 we had done a couple of days prior).
It was only a little after 8am when our group stepped out onto the front deck, fully packed and checked out of the rifugio. We were well positioned for a ferrata climb, followed by a descent down into the valley town of Pozza di Fassa, where we would reach the far end of our four-day traverse (and where we had spotted one of our rental cars).
Departing Rifugio Vallaccia
Departing Rifugio Vallaccia
Trail 624 - the trail we had taken to climb up to the Rifugio Vallaccia the day before, continued on behind and above the rifugio. We turned onto it and began ascending. It was an easy bit of hiking, with only a gradual grade. Extremely scenic, too, with the early morning sun illuminating the head of the valley above us.
Trail 624 continued ascending towards the high pass at the head of the valley, traversing diagonally upwards as it did so. Near the pass, the trail steepened and followed along the base of a vertical cliff, before popping us out at the Forcella Costella (Costella pass). From here, a broad panorama instantly unfolded to the west.
We stopped for a break at this pass, both for a rest and also to take stock of the next phase of our outing. Timewise, we were doing really well: it was only just after 9am and we were probably only another 30 minutes from the start of the ferrata. The only problem was that the weather, which had been perfectly clear upon leaving the rifugio, had now changed - and changed quite dramatically. Instead of blue skies, there was a pale overcast across most of the sky. Furthermore, southwest of us the sky actually looked a little darker, a little angrier, and it appeared as if there might actually be some active weather over there. And looking at the movement of the clouds around us, that seemed to be the direction from which the atmosphere was flowing.
With the appearance of iffy weather on the horizon, coupled with our previous days observations of how quickly the weather could change from nice to stormy, our enthusiasm for tackling the ferrata had gone down quite a few notches. I was still up for it, but Gillian was concerned about the possibility of getting stuck on a ferrata if stormy weather suddenly came along. I felt like we were close enough and the ferrata was short enough that we could probably get it done before any weather hit us, but even I had to concede that there was a slight possibility we could get caught in stormy weather if we were unlucky. I was willing to give it a go if everyone else was willing to, and left the choice up to the Hatko family.
Before making a final decision, we decided at least to hike up to a rounded highpoint, not far above us. This was the Punta Valacia - the highest point in the mini-group of peaks here. It would offer a 360-degree panoramic view, if nothing else.
It was indeed an excellent view from the top of the Punta Valacia. We could see roughly the entire route taken by the Gadotti ferrata, up and over the steep walls and smooth tops of the nearby peaks. It looked impressive and challenging - and maybe a little foreboding. Having this view didn't really help assuage any worries about completing the ferrata before possible weather.
After several minutes of debate and contemplation, the group consensus was.... skip the ferrata. The anxiousness induced by that distant band of angry weather was a little too high for the group's comfort.
So, what to do? A look at the topo revealed that a completely non-technical trail led down and around all of the cliffs and peaks. It would be longer distance-wise, but perhaps not all that much longer (if at all) time-wise, relative to the short but technical ferrata option. So, that was it... time to set off. Southwest, instead of north. Our new trail: 616.
Trail 616 initially led down the steep grassy slopes south of Punta Valacia. There were some fantastic bits where there was nothing but air off to the west, with the land dropping away rapidly. This made for some excellent vantage points for photos of our intrepid group against a background of valley, mountain, and sky.
The trail soon led into a shallow ravine, cutting off our views of the wider world. Apart from a short stretch of talus, we were hiking through alpine grasses. On each side of us were low walls of dolomite. The overall effect was one of a gentle, small, quiet and private valley. We followed our little gentle valley downhill for quite a long time.
After a couple of hours of very easy downward hiking, we finally reached treeline. Trail 616 had finally started to make the broad turn to the right, curving and curving until eventually it was roughly heading north - in the opposite direction to which we'd be descending. Of course, we had now descended below all of the difficult terrain and now the trail could safely do so.
Returning back to the weather - the thing that gave us pause and caused us to take this circuitous descent. Well, it was... pretty nice. That dark and stormy patch we had seen in the distance... well, we didn't know where it went, but it certainly did not go over us. In fact, the sun had gradually returned, and down here at tree line, it was starting to get pretty hot. We were glad when trail 616 finally entered forest proper.
Speaking of that forest... so beautiful! The northward-trending path traversed along a sideslope of beautiful open forest, with just the right proportion of tall trees and open undergrowth. Everything was verdant and green. And nice and cool, owing to the shade.
Trail 616 soon started to descend more directly downhill, switchbacking as it did so. We came to a very nice rest stop along the trail, complete with benches and picnic tables and a brightly-flowing spring, and stopped for a nice rest break. Although there were some turbulent looking clouds about, we were in a nice spot of warm sun.
616 continued its lazy switchbacking descent through the open forest. Evie was suddenly really fast on the trail. I had learned that her speed was directly proportional to her level of anger, and so assumed that some sort of fight had just occurred. I spent a bit of time trading positions with her as we raced down the trail, and very soon we reached the lower terminus of trail 616, where it ended at a gravel forest road. We waited for the others to catch up (I won the race, by the way).
courtesy BConnell
In case it wasn't obvious from a mention further up in this report, today was the day that we were going to finish our initial four-day traverse. That meant that we were angling for where we had parked one of our rental cars, which we had shuttled four days before. We had left it in a public parking spot in a location that assumed that we were going to be coming down from the Gadotti Ferrata route. And since we had decided to take a different more southerly route down and around the ferrata, we now had to head back north to regain the lower part of our originally-planned route.
And so north we contined, now on the forest road, which held the designation of trail 642. Our progress was easy and fast, since this was a nicely-graded flat road and one that traversed along, almost always sticking to a particular elevation (i.e. it was almost completely on the level). We soon came to a clearing with another quaint hiker-hut rest-stop. We didn't stop here but we did notice there was a trail junction with the trail that would have been our original route, had we opted to do the Gadotti ferrata. I looked slightly wistfully up at the steep slope above us. Woulda been cool!
Below this junction, the trail (now signed trail 630) started to descend, in a very straight but quite steep manner, down towards the bottom of the Fassa Valley. The footing of the trail was somewhat rough - rooty and rocky, and it was a bit of a tedious section. We were not at all far from the bottom, and soon we'd be hearing and seeing the bustle of people and traffic.
The trail bottomed out and connected with a wide, paved, multi-use bike path. This path presumably provides a recreational traffic corridor between the towns in the Fassa Valley. We started hiking north on this path, now only a few hundred metres from our destination car-park. We started to get a little bit of rain along this stretch, although really it was nothing more than a drizzle.
As soon as the parking lot and car came into sight (we had actually been mildly concerned about leaving the car in this lot for four days straight, even though it seemed to be a public lot where such a thing was permissable), we quickened our pace, with Katie finally practically running up to the car and raising her poles in victory. I guess she really wanted this hike to end!
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Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 13 - click map to view
July 13 Dolomites - Hike Data
Start Time:
8:14a.m.
End Time:
2:56p.m.
Duration:
6h41m
Distance:
11.27 km
(7.01 mi)
Average Speed:
1.7 km/hr
(1.0 mph)
Start Elevation:
7396ft
(2254m)
*
Max Elevation:
8664ft
(2641m)
*
Min Elevation:
4262ft
(1299m)
*
End Elevation:
4293ft
(1309m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
1316ft
(401m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
4428ft
(1350m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
