Rifugio Paolina to Rifugio Re Alberto, and the Via Ferrata Masare
Friday, July 14
A nice and sunny morning greeted us at the Rifugio Paolina. We've got a fairly big day ahead of us, with both a bit more distance and an interesting Via Ferrata to climb. All of that takes time, so we were up early, finished with breakfast, and ready to go on the front deck of the rifugio by 8am.
Morning at the Rif. Paolina
Starting off from Rif. Paolina
Our hut was directly below the main ridgeline (known as the Masare Crest) of the southern Rosengarten Group. There is an excellent grade two ferrata that runs along the top of this crest, and this was our first destination of the day. To reach it we started hiking diagonally up and around the base of the cliffs to the east. It was an easy and (apart from an initial bit of up) a mostly level high-country walk. The weather was perfect and the scenery was fantastic.
Easy hiking brought us around to the east, soon arriving at a very large Rifugio: the Rifugio Roda de Vael. This was a popular place, and already there were people milling about on the deck. We decided not to stop here, instead wanting to make best time possible to the start of our ferrata. We were looking forward to it; the taste we had had of an easy ferrata (the VF Bepi Zac) and the fact that we missed out on doing the VF Franco Gadotti meant that we were keen to get a new and slightly more challenging ferrata under our belts.
We came to a junction. This one was interesting in that both left *and* right led to our ferrata - the left led to the southern end, and the right led to the northern end. I kind of wanted to do the route in a south-to-north direction, as I thought that would work better and give us the option to take a little shortcut at the end to shorten our overall distance, but it seemed like perhaps more climbers (we could see other climbers heading up to do the same route) were going in the other direction. I hesitated, not wanted to be the only group going against the flow on the ferrata (which can be awkward). Eventually I decided on my original plan of doing it south-to-north.
The hike up to the start of the southern end of the VF Masare became steep and rather rough. We got a bit of kid grumbling on this stretch, especially from Evie, but I knew that would all fade away as soon as they started on this fun ferrata (side note: I'd done this route many years before so I knew what it was like).
Getting ready for VF Masare
We soon got to the airy little perch at the southern end of the Masare ridgeline. South of us, the land dropped off to the Passo Carezza. North of us, the rocky, craggy, cliffy towers of the ridgeline began. I knew that just around the corner, the path would lead to the start of the wires. We stopped and rigged up our gear.
Southern Start, VF Masare
Ten minutes later, we were clipping into the first bit of wire and starting off on the Via Ferrata Masare. It was definitely steeper and more involved than had been the Bepi Zac ferrata, but there were still many handholds and there were stemples, rungs or rods embedded in the rock at any point where a move might have been a little more difficult. Definitely a grade 2 but no harder.
Climbing on the VF Masare
Scrambling up on the VF Masare
We were soon busy going up and down steep (and sometimes awkward) chimneys and walls. Up and Down. Down and up. You have a fairly strenuous go of it, as you are always reaching way up over your head or shimmying down or stemming across, often trying to get you and your pack to fit between bulges and cracks and crevices. Although Evie's nine-year-old arms and legs weren't that long, she managed (with some coaching) to worm her way up and down the pitches. One thing was for sure - all the grumbling about the tiring hike up to the ferrata had faded away. It was smiles all the way around.
The fun climbing continued for the next few hours. There was one particularly dramatic section, where the wire goes up and over the top and down the other side of a huge tooth-like tower. The pictures of our group climbing down the crack of this huge rock tooth are probably the most impressive ones of this trip.
In the bowels of the ridge
As we climbed along, Katie had decided to start greeting other climbers in all of the languages she knew. At first it was short and simple, with hellos in English, French, Italian, Polish, and German. But then she started asking climbers to tell her what the word for hello was in their own respective languages, which fairly often were not any of those five - and they usually responded. The list of languages grew long as we climbed on: Icelandic, Croatian, Welsh, Irish, .... and on and on. It became a kind of memory exercise, with Katie having to mumble the entire list over and over to lock it in. A hello to a fellow hiker soon became a fairly extended affair as Katie would end up taking a good minute reciting a string of multi-lingual hellos. Everyone was a good spirit about it, often listening with a bemused smile or finishing with a bravo, and often then adding their own language's hello. Pretty soon the sound of hello filled the air continuously.
After about two hours of fun climbing and approximately 700 hellos, we came to the section where the ferrata starts to make a long descent down several cliffs to its end, on the alpine slopes and pastures below. We had an eagle-eyed view of the Rifugio Roda de Vael and a smaller sister rifugio as we did so. The smaller rifugio sported an inlaid "CIAO" on its roof.
We noticed a rescue helicopter fly to the rifugios and land at a helipad, idling there for a few minutes. It then rose into the air and headed over to a spot along the cliffs not far below us. I couldn't quite see what was going on, but it was definitely possible it was some sort of incident and that there was a mountain rescue in progress.
The rescue helicopter ascends
We weren't quite done with our last stretch of ferrata, but I wasn't going to let that get in the way of a close up look. I was in the front, so I did a fast-forward and down-clipped as fast as I could on the last bit of ferrata, then jogged along the path to an overlook above where the helicopter had disappeared from view (but not from earshot - the sound of the turbine and the whipping of the blades were echoing off all of the cliffs and crags around us).
Sure enough, as soon as I crested the small overlook, I could see the S&R helicopter immediately below me, and very close. Maybe... 20 metres away? The helicopter was in a steady hover, and it's rotor tips couldn't have been more than a few metres from the wall of the cliff atop which I was standing. The rear door was open and there was an airman sitting out with legs dangling, and a winch rope descending below to a point I couldn't see. I guess.... they must have been rescuing someone who had experienced some sort of climbing accident, perhaps? (there's no ferrata in that spot, so if it was climbers it would have been the more traditional type).
Katie observes the action
Eventually the rest of us (the Hatkos and Brian) caught up and we all watched the end of the rescue (or training scenario) operation. The helicopter gradually hovered backwards until it was in more clear air, and as it did so, we could see two figures clasped together in a sort of mutual hug, both being lifted upwards to the helicopter. Soon they were both lifted up adjacent to the open door and they were slid in. The helicopter (an Airbus AS365 of the Vigili del Fuoco Trento - the same organization that had opened our apartment door back in Trento!) then banked away and flew back down to the rifugios below. Had that been real or not? No matter - it was still very cool to see up close.
After watching the helicopter activity, we had one final bit of simple wire before the ferrata stuff ended completely. Below that, a bit of descending path soon led to a point where - if the intent was to reach our reserved rifugio, which was still quite a way to the north of us - we could easily leave the trail and head north. It looked like we could simply hike cross-meadow from here and intercept the appropriate trail, which wasn't too far away.
The problem was that the Hatko family was a bit wary of embarking on a long segment at this point in the day - and probably, given past experiences, rightfully so. It was now 3pm, and our destination rifugio - the Rifugio Re Alberto the 1st - was still some distance away. In fact, it was probably 7-8 ish kilometres away. Definitely doable in the five-ish hours we had left before dinner time, but still, those past experiences were weighing heavily on the Hatkos. I think the biggest worry were that the kids would force an inordinate number of rest stops if they got tired of another long march. Reluctantly, then, they made the decision to break off from us (as in, me and Brian), and they would either head over to the nearby rifugios to see if they had room, and if not, hike back to the Paolina lift and down to their car and go find a hotel in town. They'd then meet us the next day in the town where we'd placed our other rental car (the town of Mazzin).
North on 541
So, just Brian and myself now. Thanks to the Hatkos, we probably were indeed going to make better time, but even so, we did have a ways to go. Time to get crackin' !
We continued north on the sort of.... "hiker highway" of the Rosengarten group - trail 541. At first we had an easy and rapid go of it across mostly flat and grassy meadows, but soon we started to angle upwards. The trail must surmount and cross a high crest that projects out eastward from the main north-south arrangement of peaks. The way through this crest is via 2550m-high metre Zigolade (Cigolade) Pass, and the trail now wound its way upwards to this pass, alternatively traversing diagonally up meadow slopes, passing through a narrow gap in a cliff band, and switchbacking back and forth up talus. At Zigolade Pass we were treated to a new view - the view into the broad curving Valojet valley and of the northern peaks of the Rosengarten group,
