hey all
Well last week me and dad were talking about doing a long all day hike that would be really hard and not nessisarily doable in a day i then kinda got carried away with the planning and it got longer and longer then encompased climbing the tallest mountain peak in this area the "Cima Presenella" at 3558m. normaly you would get drive to near the segantine refuge and park at 1900m then go from there, Us nope we decided to walk from the Village at 800m via a different peak and pass. This gave us a 35km walk with over 3300m of up :) I read about the normal route and time scales then for the section that we were adding picked a figure out of the air of how long it would take and from this we deided to start at 6am, here we go
6am,
Well we have eaten a quick breaky and downed a much needed coffee and were off its still dark and will be for around a hour the first part of our trip is a easy jaunt up a not so steep road to campolo at 1250m, This leg is quickly over our breakfast has gone down so we pick up the pace continuing up this rapidly deteriating track we watch the sun rise over the
glacier.
Continuing on our first target is the "Bocchetta Sarodole" at 2217m the narrow mountain pass just behind the "Cima Lancia" is the easyist way into the next valley however we completly miss this and get the "Pass de la nona" at 2310m at 9am, Here we watch a small group of Camoosh (Mountain Deer) eating and running. and watch the clouds swirl down in the valley
a quick bannana and a drink and were off our next destination Refuge segantini (Arrow in next photo)
10.40am, The sugested time to segantini from where we are is is 2hours 40 minutes, 1 hour 40 later we arrive pretty sweaty at the refuge and take 20 minutes to have some lunch and relax from here we catch the first glimpse of our target its the right and peak of the 2 in the middle of the photo shrouded in the mist
11am, moving on again were quickly covering ground and get much better views of what were up against its the peak just over my shoulder
On from here the ground gets a lot more interesting as we follow the top of a long loose ridge till we clear the grass and all vegatation and only rocks are left. Above us looms the impassable looking granit fortress remembering what I read it is the lowest part in the middle with the loose looking gully that we need to head towards
Leaving the solid rock we head out onto the glacier and continue our approach
Upon arriving at the gully it looks worse than it did from afar it is full of super loose scree and dirt and everything i stand on and hold is moving including the really big boulders as carefully as possible i climb up it ariving a the top im releaved it was a bit of a death trap. we have arrived at the "Bocchetta di mount Nero" at 3078m were nearing the peak.
getting to the top we are greated with the views of a barren loose looking valley with a huge drop below us
After walking along a narrow exposed ledge we get to an old mettle ladder bolted to the wall and down climb this for 25m to the valley edge
by now it is pushing onto 2pm we have been at it for around 8 hours feeling pretty drained and finding everything harder as we get higher. in front of us is a large rising cliff face that apparently has a very easy way to climb it somewhere, deciding to not look at the route description we search around and start up what looks easy 8 metres up we decide to reverse and try again this isnt easy. a few minutes later we find the easy way its 100m to our right getting there we climb up the first 15m then find it gets loads easyer eventualy leading to a rough path that weaves its way up the face, we get to the top and find many patches of snow everywhere trying to move quickly now as we can see a ominus looking cloud forming on the other side of the valley we puch on over the long loose boulder field, its pretty scary when giant multi tonne blocks all move when you stand on them. we carry on and follow the ridge when it suddenly becomes super narrow less than a metre and huge drops each side. after a quick look a easy way is found down climbing 10 metres then an exposed traverse below a load of loose teatering block of rock.
This over we arrive at the "Bivacco Orobica" a small emergancy shelter at 3382 metres. looking back at the clouds were releaved to see that they havent moved closer and appear to be clearing slightly we push on towards the top its only a short way now but is so hard my legs are burning and as i drag myself the last few metres to the top in glad that were finaly there, The views were amazing for the first 30 seconds then were hit by a low cloud and can see 20 metres so heres me at the summet cross and the one shot we got of the glacier
Its 3.30pm its taken us 9and a half hours of walking uphill to get here and its time to go down so were off reversing everything we have done back to the bottom of the mettle ladder on thye boulder field, getting here im super glad that we dont have to down climb the gully instead were heading down this valley that comes out in val genova near cascate nardis. Carrying on down we hear strange sliding noises and on looking around notice that as the sun has reached the far parts of the glacier there are huge mini buss sized blocks of rocks that are moving off there icy pearches and slowly sliding down the glacier playing bumper cars with the other boulders, amazing as it is we decide its best to scamper and get away from all this looseness ASAP, we push on and the valley and the blocks are endless after a few hours walking we have decended over 1000m to 2550m and still moving over boulders when we finaly get our first bit of grass and a properish path that doiesnt involve jumping between endless rock, My legs and knees are killing me but were well on our way now, 100m later the path disapears and the rocks are back . . the mist also decends and wer left trying to look ahead for the next cairne marking the way. soon enough though were past the boulderfield and onto a diecent track, trying to hurry and make good time we plough on soon getting the thte Roberta mountian hut here we have a quick drink and a snack then were on our way its 7pm and were still at 2200 metres.
Moving down we can see the tree line and given that it will be getting dark soon we are convinced that the path must get better and more pronounced there so our aim is to get to the tree line before dark, 20 minutes later were at the tree line and the path is indeed better but there has also been a massive rockfall from the cliffs above that has decimated the whole mountain side, there have been some huge boulders the size of small busses rampaging throiugh the trees. there are some trees a good 30-40cm in diameter that have been hit and ripped in 2 pieces and dashed out the way then huge crators in the ground 30 metres past then more tree distruction. the larges of the pieces looks like it went a good kilometre through trees and bushes before it finaly stopped rolling, pretty impressive. equally anoying as there is no real path any more, another 30 minutes of power walking and were are finaly through the distruction and into the trees and a good well marked path, its just before 8pm and the head torches are out the final bit to be done in the dark,
It takes another hour till we are down at the base of the cascata this part seems to go on forever my legs are dead every steep step downhill makes them ache and hurt, we keep thinking we can hear the river in the base of the valley but each time its the water falls noise bounching off the valley walls somewhere. upon getting to the road its almost done another 30 minutes of power walking and we finaly make it back to the flat and the feast that awaits us, I think the look of discust on everyones face there sums up how much we both smell, all in all a really good day for both of us, its 9.30pm 15.5 hours from when we started. So thats what it takes to go from 800m to 3550m and the top of the presenella. Im absoloutly finnished, it has taken me a good 3 days before im ready to do anything hard or involving walking upill again :)
good times
Well last week me and dad were talking about doing a long all day hike that would be really hard and not nessisarily doable in a day i then kinda got carried away with the planning and it got longer and longer then encompased climbing the tallest mountain peak in this area the "Cima Presenella" at 3558m. normaly you would get drive to near the segantine refuge and park at 1900m then go from there, Us nope we decided to walk from the Village at 800m via a different peak and pass. This gave us a 35km walk with over 3300m of up :) I read about the normal route and time scales then for the section that we were adding picked a figure out of the air of how long it would take and from this we deided to start at 6am, here we go
6am,
Well we have eaten a quick breaky and downed a much needed coffee and were off its still dark and will be for around a hour the first part of our trip is a easy jaunt up a not so steep road to campolo at 1250m, This leg is quickly over our breakfast has gone down so we pick up the pace continuing up this rapidly deteriating track we watch the sun rise over the
glacier.
Continuing on our first target is the "Bocchetta Sarodole" at 2217m the narrow mountain pass just behind the "Cima Lancia" is the easyist way into the next valley however we completly miss this and get the "Pass de la nona" at 2310m at 9am, Here we watch a small group of Camoosh (Mountain Deer) eating and running. and watch the clouds swirl down in the valley
a quick bannana and a drink and were off our next destination Refuge segantini (Arrow in next photo)
10.40am, The sugested time to segantini from where we are is is 2hours 40 minutes, 1 hour 40 later we arrive pretty sweaty at the refuge and take 20 minutes to have some lunch and relax from here we catch the first glimpse of our target its the right and peak of the 2 in the middle of the photo shrouded in the mist
11am, moving on again were quickly covering ground and get much better views of what were up against its the peak just over my shoulder
On from here the ground gets a lot more interesting as we follow the top of a long loose ridge till we clear the grass and all vegatation and only rocks are left. Above us looms the impassable looking granit fortress remembering what I read it is the lowest part in the middle with the loose looking gully that we need to head towards
Leaving the solid rock we head out onto the glacier and continue our approach
Upon arriving at the gully it looks worse than it did from afar it is full of super loose scree and dirt and everything i stand on and hold is moving including the really big boulders as carefully as possible i climb up it ariving a the top im releaved it was a bit of a death trap. we have arrived at the "Bocchetta di mount Nero" at 3078m were nearing the peak.
getting to the top we are greated with the views of a barren loose looking valley with a huge drop below us
After walking along a narrow exposed ledge we get to an old mettle ladder bolted to the wall and down climb this for 25m to the valley edge
by now it is pushing onto 2pm we have been at it for around 8 hours feeling pretty drained and finding everything harder as we get higher. in front of us is a large rising cliff face that apparently has a very easy way to climb it somewhere, deciding to not look at the route description we search around and start up what looks easy 8 metres up we decide to reverse and try again this isnt easy. a few minutes later we find the easy way its 100m to our right getting there we climb up the first 15m then find it gets loads easyer eventualy leading to a rough path that weaves its way up the face, we get to the top and find many patches of snow everywhere trying to move quickly now as we can see a ominus looking cloud forming on the other side of the valley we puch on over the long loose boulder field, its pretty scary when giant multi tonne blocks all move when you stand on them. we carry on and follow the ridge when it suddenly becomes super narrow less than a metre and huge drops each side. after a quick look a easy way is found down climbing 10 metres then an exposed traverse below a load of loose teatering block of rock.
This over we arrive at the "Bivacco Orobica" a small emergancy shelter at 3382 metres. looking back at the clouds were releaved to see that they havent moved closer and appear to be clearing slightly we push on towards the top its only a short way now but is so hard my legs are burning and as i drag myself the last few metres to the top in glad that were finaly there, The views were amazing for the first 30 seconds then were hit by a low cloud and can see 20 metres so heres me at the summet cross and the one shot we got of the glacier
Its 3.30pm its taken us 9and a half hours of walking uphill to get here and its time to go down so were off reversing everything we have done back to the bottom of the mettle ladder on thye boulder field, getting here im super glad that we dont have to down climb the gully instead were heading down this valley that comes out in val genova near cascate nardis. Carrying on down we hear strange sliding noises and on looking around notice that as the sun has reached the far parts of the glacier there are huge mini buss sized blocks of rocks that are moving off there icy pearches and slowly sliding down the glacier playing bumper cars with the other boulders, amazing as it is we decide its best to scamper and get away from all this looseness ASAP, we push on and the valley and the blocks are endless after a few hours walking we have decended over 1000m to 2550m and still moving over boulders when we finaly get our first bit of grass and a properish path that doiesnt involve jumping between endless rock, My legs and knees are killing me but were well on our way now, 100m later the path disapears and the rocks are back . . the mist also decends and wer left trying to look ahead for the next cairne marking the way. soon enough though were past the boulderfield and onto a diecent track, trying to hurry and make good time we plough on soon getting the thte Roberta mountian hut here we have a quick drink and a snack then were on our way its 7pm and were still at 2200 metres.
Moving down we can see the tree line and given that it will be getting dark soon we are convinced that the path must get better and more pronounced there so our aim is to get to the tree line before dark, 20 minutes later were at the tree line and the path is indeed better but there has also been a massive rockfall from the cliffs above that has decimated the whole mountain side, there have been some huge boulders the size of small busses rampaging throiugh the trees. there are some trees a good 30-40cm in diameter that have been hit and ripped in 2 pieces and dashed out the way then huge crators in the ground 30 metres past then more tree distruction. the larges of the pieces looks like it went a good kilometre through trees and bushes before it finaly stopped rolling, pretty impressive. equally anoying as there is no real path any more, another 30 minutes of power walking and were are finaly through the distruction and into the trees and a good well marked path, its just before 8pm and the head torches are out the final bit to be done in the dark,
It takes another hour till we are down at the base of the cascata this part seems to go on forever my legs are dead every steep step downhill makes them ache and hurt, we keep thinking we can hear the river in the base of the valley but each time its the water falls noise bounching off the valley walls somewhere. upon getting to the road its almost done another 30 minutes of power walking and we finaly make it back to the flat and the feast that awaits us, I think the look of discust on everyones face there sums up how much we both smell, all in all a really good day for both of us, its 9.30pm 15.5 hours from when we started. So thats what it takes to go from 800m to 3550m and the top of the presenella. Im absoloutly finnished, it has taken me a good 3 days before im ready to do anything hard or involving walking upill again :)
good times
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