tamsin.moye.me.uk

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Crappy weather all day. Rain turned to hail at 2270m, but the sun came out
briefly at the top of Forca Rossa (2490m). Rolled in to Rif. Fuciade at
~5pm to find no space so grabbed a quick beer and nailed the final 45mins
of section 2 down to Passo di san Pellegrino. So half way We appear to
have left both our German and Polish friends behind though. Seen very few
people today – possibly because of the weather which made navigation
tricky. Kinda glad we didn’t bother trying to do the climbers’ route
though – today would not have made for afun trip over the shoulder of the
Marmolada and it’s glacier, and i’d've been slightly miffed at carrying an
axe for 10 days not no need it.

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had a sweet climb over via ferratas to the col then over via Rif. Pisciadu
to Rif. Boe. Went over a lot of icy patches but mostly cabled so ok.
Decided on a short (1h30) detour over Piz Boe (3152m “the most accessible
3000m+ summit of the Dolomites”) – a bit slippery on the way up but
nothing worse than singing schoolkids on the descent. Then mostly
ran/bounced down the other side and the 600m descent to Passe Pordoi
before climbing another 200m up to Rif Baita Fredarola. Sweet view of the
Marmolada from here

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After 1 too many beers with a couple of Polish brothers, we managed an 8am
start up over Forcella della Roa (2617m) whose steep zig-zag path was
snow/ice covered over a very steep slope full of loose scree… mostly
wished for an axe but made it to the top and put on harnesses/VF gear for
a cool scamble/climb along the aided section of ridge. Made it to Rif.
Puez by 1pm so felt obliged to push on and made it down to Passo Gardena
by 4pm (stage 1 complete in 1.5 days from Plose where the route properly
starts).

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W00t! It didn’t get better so we ditched Plose at 11:40 anyway and
navigated through the snow, mist and wind down into the sunny valleys and
back up over Forcella di Putia (2357m) to Rif. Genova. Realised
yesterday’s final 200m struggle was probably more down to altitude than
fatigue – 12months living at sea level doesn’t help so much with the
haemaglobin… Not dead yet, and have some more Forst
Tomorrow we’re headed for Rif. Puez or Passo Gardena at a push (or a
wildcamp somewhere between)…

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Woke up this morning to a “light dusting”. The rifugio guardian describes
prospects of reaching Rif. Genova this morning as “no chance” :/ We’re
gonna wait until midday then go (he probably mostly sees kids who are crap
at navigating cos all the trails are so well waymarked, when the markings
aren’t covered). It should only take about 4hrs to get down there…

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Argh, Adie made me climb all 1887m up here and it was hard we did the
last push from the cable car station in 1hr tho despite being exhausted
and the chiq at the station reckoning on 1.5hrs (possibly cos of the
omelettes and beers she’d just fed us). we also spent all morning slacking
/ shoppping / being hungover so didn’t start til midday – oops.

didn’t get axes – the camp ones were 20 quid more than uk prices despite
this being their home country. the also didn’t have the uber lightweight
camp corsas so we weren’t convinced. day 5 will just have to be the
walkers’ option.

tis cold up here. snow started at ~1980m and the wind is strong and cold.
there’s a swirly weather pattern heading down too and i don’t imagine via
ferratas are fun in the rain, but the forecast is just cloudy for the next
2-3 days so we should be ok.

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Sunday, Italy, everything’s closed. Wandered round town and there’s a good
few hiking shops so we’ll hit them first thing tomorrow. Somewhat tempted
to get lightweight axes to do the climbers’ variant route across the
glacier ~day 5 from Rif Castiglioni… but we’ll see what they have. Need
to get food and fuel then head up 1886m to Rif Plose where Alta Via 2
technically starts… it’s a 4-5hr hike up so that’s the plan for tomorrow
afternoon.

Beer experience: Forst >> Moretti

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made it via Amsterdam to Venice finally, landing in the dark at Marco Polo
with an awesome view of the lit up city as we came in. Tomorrow we need to
track down stove fuel and food then head over to Verona then up to
Bressanone to start walking on Monday.

did some playing with our altimeter watches on the plane – pressure drops
to ~800hPa or ~2000m apparent height above sea level at cruising altitude.
they pressurise/depressurise us at ~100m/min. youch.

now for a birra moretti

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I’ve not gone yet, but I’m shortly off to hike Alta Via 2 across the
Dolomites and my updates will appear here

With plans afoot to test my new MSR Carbon Reflex 2 lightweight 2-man tent on Dartmoor for the weekend, we realised, at 18:00 on Friday night, that we’d managed to pick the weekend of the DMM, so the moor was likely to be swarming and not quite as peaceful as we had hoped.

So the plan was revised and saw us driving for 6 hours to the Lakes on Saturday morning, through Ambleside and then Chapel Stile up to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel where we left the car. We headed out up the Cumbria Way, then climbed steeply up the flooded paths past Angle Tarn (the other one), to finally pitch up overnight on the shoulder of Ill Crag at 935m. The morning saw the crappy, wet, windy, misty weather lift a little so a spectacular view of Scafell Pike (see thumbnail) appeared as we finished packing up and headed over to bag the summit first thing, before heading back past Langdale Pikes and down the Cumbria Way in good time for the drive back home. GPX track and route analysis if you’re interested.

Conclusion: the tent is pretty cool, once we’d finished tweaking it and got it pitched right (well, Adie did while I made treats), although I wouldn’t generally take it out quite so high, in quite such crap weather, or pitch it anywhere particularly exposed. My ME Dragonfly 2XT is still my tent of choice for now. Mr MSR is relegated to competitions, or particularly gentle conditions.