A Day in the Dolomites

by David Dunn

I ended my Saturday ride early at about 4pm at Ponte Gardina; we stayed here on my previous visit to the Dolomites in 1959 and now 40+1 years on, growing older and older, shorter of wind and rheumatic in most places, I was back. My chief memory of Ponte Gardina was of the number of dead flies in the salad. So why had I chosen to stay here again? Well, tomorrow I intended to visit the Alpe de Suisi, said to be the most extensive area of summer pasture in the Alps and I was not sure that accommodation would be available further on. The guides produced by the RSF (of rough-stuff routes) and OCD (of road passes), which are usually such a valuable aid to continental travel, for once seemed to offer contradictory advice and both gave place names not shown on my TCI 1:200,000 map.

There were no flies in the salad this time but I found it difficult to sleep because of the church clock which marked the quarter hours, and the railway barrier which regularly gave notice of its lowering to allow passage on the main (only?) Italy-Austria line. Once I did get to sleep I was soon awakened by a thunderstorm which seemed to last for hours.

Sunday morning was much colder than the previous three weeks but I was away by 8.40, however, in the village square, only a hundred yards or so from my hotel, was a band in Tyrolean dress obviously preparing for something. I waited. Shortly a couple of carabinieri arrived and started to officiously wave their red and green table tennis bats at motorists.

A parade began to form; first a boy with a banner flanked by two pretty girls in smart dirndl dresses, the band, followed by the men of the village, mostly wearing the ill-fitting Sunday best typical of farm workers, the eight members of the fire brigade looking like Barney McGrew and his colleagues from Trumpton. Next a cross followed by the choir and then the priest, under a canopy, carrying a reliquary and finally the women in less smart dirndl dresses counting their rosaries. The whole scene looked like Don Camille transported to the Alps.

By now I was wanting to get moving but the procession blocked my road and there was no alternative but to walk behind until eventually the parade took a left turn to an outlying hamlet and I was able to start my climb - and what a climb. The ascent from the valley at Ponte Gardina at 1535ft to Compaccio at 6050ft was not dissimilar to climbing from Crowden to Holme Moss four times.

My breath formed white condensation as I climbed through Kastelruth and Suisi (there are hotels at both) and although I was sweating it was too cold to take off my top. At first there was little traffic, but beyond the Bolzano road junction at Suisi the volume increased but was insufficient to cause discomfort. The German/Austrian motor cyclists, whose noise blighted my holiday, made up an irritating proportion of that traffic.

Yesterday I descended for hours from the Wurtzjoch through beautiful Val di Funes and today I had to pay for yesterday's pleasure. I needed almost three hours for the 16 miles to Compaccio where the public road ends. Compaccio obviously caters for those using its big car park and has most of the grot that such places attract. Here I estimated the temperature to be about 5°C, most of the Italians were wearing down-filled skiing gear, so it was on with jacket, scarf and hat, but with only shorts my legs were cold.

At Compaccio I noticed a track heading south-east, presumably heading to the Mahlknecht Hut. My route was straight ahead in an easterly direction along a well surfaced private road to Saltaria. Cars are prohibited but there were lots of pedestrians and a number of horse-drawn sledges on wheels carrying visitors from the car park. To my left the mountains beyond Gardina Valley were topped with fresh snow whilst the alpine pasture stretched away to the south. In the dullness there was no colour. Apart from the white snow everything was black or grey. From Compaccio to Saltaria is slightly downhill for most of the way with a final steeper descent.

In the conditions Salteria was a bleak place of three (I think) hotels. From here the map showed a "white" private road heading south and then east to Campitello. Sure enough there was a right turn signed to Rifugio Sciliar 2145. I never found out why the name of this place always includes its altitude, it is a bit like Kronenburg 1664. Taking the indicated turn I came in about half a mile to another hotel and the start of the rough-stuff.

A log under some trees provided a lunch spot which in the overcast and cold conditions was a fairly short affair. The route could best be described as a jeep track, it was very loose in places and, tired by the morning climb, I had to walk for long sections. On steep sections an attempt at stabilisation had been made by sinking in the pre-cast concrete honeycomb material which is used in some rural car parks in Britain.

Initially the route was through trees gradually opening up to cow-grazed pasture. It being Sunday there were lots of walkers around and I saw a few mountain bikers travelling in the opposite direction. Presumably they had come from Compaccio via the Mahlknecht Hut. About an hour's travelling time from Salteria a right turn at a junction was signed to that hut. I ignored the turn, continued up a steep hill, had great views towards the Sasso Lungo massif, then about 30 minutes after the junction I arrived at Rifugio Sciliar.

Here I had coffee and cake, in the circumstances, the 20% premium over what I had paid yesterday did not seem unreasonable. The only other customers in mid afternoon were a family who had ridden on horseback from Campitello, I was later to find that horse trips are advertised as a tourist attraction in the town, to my mind preferable to 4x4 expeditions. Around the refugio the ground was covered in alpine rose shrubs in flower, unfortunately the weather did not show their colour to its best.

From the rifugio it was only a couple of hundred yards to the pass at 2168 metres (7110 ft). In the Dolomites most people speak both German and Italian (I also saw signs in another language, probably similar to Swiss Romansch, does anyone know what it's called?) This pass is either the Mahlkenchtjoch or Passeo Duron. I later realised that it marks the boundary between the area where German is the preferred choice to the north-west and that to the south-east where Italian is predominant. (Since returning Clem has drawn my attention to the fact that the pass marked the frontier between Austria and Italy until the realignment of borders after WW1).

Just beyond the pass is a junction of paths but my route was straight ahead down a steep and rocky mule track - no carrying, but too steep and rough to ride - to the river below the cliffs of the Sciliar massif. Here another loose jeep track is picked up. This is gently graded (except for a short steeper section where braking caused the rear wheel to lock up) and as the sun had now (about 5pm) come out his provided a delightful ride down the Duron Valley. The upper valley is alpine pasture with many colourful plants; in places there were small, rather primitive, chalets. Presumably erected in pre-motor days as summer homes for the farmers, they now appear to be used as weekend retreats and some residents were loading their cars for the return to the city. However, only two cars passed me in the valley, which was very peaceful. At lower altitude the track enters forest and eventually becomes hard surfaced at Plan di Campitello, where a farm building is built over the road, before sweeping down hairpins to Campitello. As I arrived the church clock was striking 6.30, I had covered some 34 miles (with probably 6 of them on foot) in just under 10 hours It only remained to find accommodation, and I was soon fixed up at the Ladina in the main square, where a very smart room with adequate evening meal and excellent breakfast cost less than f20.

The easy rough-stuff provided a quiet and pleasant route, the value of which may be diminished by the length of the climb to Compaccio.
 

First published the RSF Journal in 2001