Hiking Around the Rifugio

Hiking trails around the rifugio

You can't backpack with tents in the Dolomites. In order to hike for multiple days, you need to book a stay at a rifugio. These are buildings that are at different spots along trails. Dave found us one to stay in that was at the top of a trail in between two ridges. He picked this one for that location and because it has a lot of climbing and something called a Via Ferrata next to it. The Via Ferrata is a climbing route that has a permanent steel connector along the way so that you can clip in. Unfortunately, our full day at the rifugio was on Thursday, and storms were in the forecast for Thursday. We decided not to rent the gear needed for climbing and that we would just hike the trails that were in the area. 

The trail up to the rifugio was a mile and a half, straight up. It was tough! I was definitely questioning my choice of not taking the cable car as we were hiking. Once we arrived, the hosts showed us our bedroom, which was small with two bunkbeds. There was also a separate dormitory style area for people to sleep. We had a little bit of time before dinner, so we sat and played cards in the main room. There, we heard a combination of English, German and Italian again, which was pretty cool. Our hosts were fluent in at least those three languages. Both boys can now play euchre, and we played some rummy. We had vegetable soup and sausage for dinner, then headed to bed early because breakfast was at 7a.m.

The next morning, we were served a breakfast of meats, cheeses, bread, and jam. Somewhat unusual to our cereal-eating family, but we made it work. We headed out and the first thing we did was climb down the climb we went up yesterday- tough on the quads! Then we hiked around one of the two mountains near us. Once we got to the other side, we had to go straight up again! Luckily this time there was a rifugio to eat lunch at halfway up the trail. 

Ben took off in front of us on the uphills. Ethan stayed with us, and he definitely was showing his extroversion as we hiked. He didn't stop talking or singing practically the whole way, and had a good time picking up rocks and breaking them apart. After we ate lunch, the trail got very steep and clouds moved in. We did make it to our rifugio and spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards and hanging out in the main room.