With mom and dad dragging us around Europe we land in Venice and meet lil sister (Vanessa, sorry you are my lil sister still) and husband Jason.  We head a few hours north to Cortina at the foot of the Italian alps.  We spent a few spectacular days in Cortina which is probably the town that Vail village was modeled after.   Window shopping and eating authentic Italian food is what you do here.  Of the 50 or so restaurants in town we didn’t find a single non-Italian menu.  This was confirmed by our hiking guide the following day.

ready to head to the mountains

The hiking extravaganza started out with a day of via ferrata. Basically a vertical obstacle course of metal pins and cables to get you up the face of a mountain.  Built in WW1 because the Italians wanted to fight in the mountains they knew versus having their villages destroyed by war.  So imagine an expert mountain climber scaling a vertical wall, now take rookies like us and give them a cable to hook a harness into and that’s what we did.  Without the cable and harness we could not have made it more than our own height because the face of the wall was straight up.   Then at times we went across the face of the rock left to right and even a bit inverted.  A little scary but as long as you believed in the pins drilled into the mountain and your harness system you were safe.  Or at least you would only fall down about 10 feet until a pin connected to the vertical cable would catch you.  You probably end with an injury but not life threatening.  We were all surprised by the level of difficulty but glad we accomplished the challenge.

yes that is straight down

day 1 complete

Next we set off for several days of hiking in the Dolomites without a guide, luckily Jason is a pro and has mapped out our trek.  The Dolomites are a massive group of 18 mountain peaks in the Italian alps. The way this works is you hike into the mountain range, up and down peaks and then end up in different towns along the way.  Eventually making it to a town where you finish, so it’s different than a hike such as Kilimanjaro where you climb only one high peak.   7 hours on the trail and we make it to our Refugio, basically a ski style lodge built on the mountain.  The four of us shared a room, where a shower cost us 3.50 for about 3 minutes of water.  They serve you a full three-course dinner with wine on tap but showers are extra? So our nighttime discussion turned to the earth, I mean after all we walked across it for 7 hours today.  We came to realize that the earth crust is only 60 miles deep, random trivia but a little upsetting to think that after 60 miles we hit magna.  Ok maybe too much wine on tap.

Day 3 is a big one, 7 hours and 2,000 feet up and 4,000 down.  I’ll take going up all day; going down feels like someone is shooting nails in your kneecap when you are as old as us.  That thing called the meniscus, which used to be a shock Absorber, is gone.   The highlight of the day was a 1,000 ft. peak we hiked which was so straight up we crawled on all fours part of the way.  As we are getting close to the top we hear some voices and Jason thought it was a bunch of young girls giggling.  As we made our way switching back and forth up the peak we ran into a group of 15 or so 60+ year old woman cruising down the peak like it was a leisurely Sunday stroll.  Really incredible since we all (minus Jason) agreed we couldn’t have made it down on our own.  The scenery really is breathtaking (had to use the word) and the random subjects we discuss and debate along the way aren’t bad either.  This is part of the allure of hiking, using your own transport system to get far away from modern society and talk about random things because you have the time and a free mind.  No distraction like phones, computers, grocery store lists or any other typical daily tasks.  On that note we all agree to have a no screen day at least once a week (don’t use anything that has a screen, I guess we could have called it a no tech day) it will never happen but a good thought.

Finishing day 3, the celebration was earned

Our Refugio tonight is about as cool as it can get in the middle of a mountain range.  We are in a valley that doubles as a cow pasture, river for kids playing and a stopping point for trekkers and mountain bikers from all over the world, there is an easy going shower attitude here (we are a little obsessed with how the showering system works here)…a little boy was allowed to press his face against the glass while Linda showered—he was blatantly staring at her hooties.  The mom was in the bathroom but like many European parenting approaches she was hands off.  Next a bunch of kids start screaming and playing in the shower.   Linda talking now-Once I finally dry off (while hiding in my stall to avoid the child voyeur) I get sprayed over the stall and get drenched again. Since my towel was only the size of a hand towel, a double dry off was a big deal to me.  So another strange shower arrangement.  A free shower and a small hand towel is part of our reservation but if you want a shower or bath size towel you pay 3 euro….go figure.

The next day of hiking was supposed to be easy but it was far from that, 8 hours later we get to our new town.  Knees and back aching coupled with being exhausted meant an afternoon nap was in order.  We end in the Alta Badia region, a series of mountains all connected with hiking/biking trails, ski lifts, gondolas….We all are very impressed with how organized the setup is between the towns and agree that there is nothing like this in the U.S.

check out some photos Dolomites August 2015

Jason and Vanessa will finish this blog later this week, I’m too tired