courtesy DBoyd
From the summit, follow a route east. There are red waymarks and a large, blood-like 'Torrani' painted on a rock below the summit. Follow these waymarks, scrambling and hiking down ledges towards the Rifugio Torrani. It is about 250m of hiking and about 200m descent in elevation (about 700 feet) to the Rifugio. You'll approach the Rifugio from above and behind, and your first sight of it will be its roof (it is tucked into the cliff, facing southeast).
The rifugio is small and has a single dorm room, and is caretakered by one person. A small and simple place compared to the big rifugios at lower elevations, but cozy enough.
courtesy DBoyd
The easiest descent route from the Rifugio Torrani is the so-called 'via Normale'. Do not be fooled into thinking that 'normale' means easy. It isn't really, as we found out!
Following the sign that points the way to the 'via Normale', one follows a well-defined path, that soon becomes downscrambling on easy rock. You can see by looking down at this point that descent route gets much steeper before it gets easier. As you descend further, you start to encounter ferrata wire - at first not too hard or exposed, but as you go down further, it gets both harder and more exposed. In fact, it is probably wise to use your ferrata gear for this descent. I'm surprised this isn't listed as a separate ferrata on its own. I'd probably grade this descent route as a 2C on the fletcher/smith scale.
courtesy DBoyd
courtesy PChen
courtesy DBoyd
courtesy PChen
Scrambling and Traversing
Eventually the via normale's climbing portion ends, and abruptly you are back on a path. It was along this section that we encountered our only snowfield (mid-July 2007). The path descends steeply to a junction with trail 557 - the trail you used to get to the start of the ferrata.
Follow this trail north, traversing below the Civetta massif. Eventually you'll reach the col where you turned off on your way to the start of the Ferrata Alleghesi. If you look way, way up on the rib where the ferrata Alleghesi is located, there's a good chance you'll spot the tiny dots of ascending climbers.
From this point on, you are retracing your earlier steps on trail 557.
courtesy PChen
Hiking below swoopy strata
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