Windwalker's Mountain Post: Alpe di Sennes Circuit

Monday morning we awoke to the church bells tolling in a perfectly blue mountain sky. The surrounding peaks were wreathed in mist that would soon burn off. This is it. Our day to hike. One of the concierges at our hotel (an avid hiker) told us the first day. "Ahhh, that hike, the Sennes, and the other Lago Sorapis...yes, beautiful. You can go do them right now. Why not?" This was at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was about to rain. Today however? We go. First we try Alpe di Sennes circuit.

"This one," Pam says, "is 6 miles. It is the hike that everyone takes in the beginning." So we drive the little Panda up the scary, twisting, one-lane road back to the Rifugio Malga Ra Stua, grab our packs, and head off down the jeep road toward the huge mountains in front of us. We hike a mile in to a beautiful, green alpine meadow surrounded by massive peaks. In the middle of the meadow is what appears to be another rifugio, but could be someone's house. At the crossroads in the foot of the meadow, we start up the jeep road to the left. "So, we'll go up this side of the mountain in front of us," I say, "and finish by coming down the other side." Pam is already well in front of me. "It's a circuit. We go around," she calls over her shoulder. The guide book says,

This is the western portion of the Alpe di Sennes Circuit. The trail runs beneath the dramatic crags of the Croda Rossa mountains and passes through two stunning nature parks—the Dolomiti D’Ampezzo and the Fanes-Sennes-Braies. Beginning at 5,472’, we’ll cross over landscapes of marshlands, verdant valleys, and stark alpine slopes, eventually reaching an altitude of 6,942 feet. We'll return to our starting point via a World War I mule track.

We start up the jeep road and very quicklly it turns steep...very steep. A jeep track? During WWI the Italians and the Austrians fought to control this mountainous area. In addition to killing one another, many soldiers were killed by the terrain and alpine weather. As we trudge up and up, every turn in the road steeper than the last, we stop to breathe and read memorials to soldiers and indeed companies of men killed by avalanche and bitter winter weather. As I stop at yet another vista for a picture, Pam says, "We have a long way to go and we're not making very good time." "Are we on a schedule?" I ask. "No but the guide book says we should be able to do this in 5 and a half hours and look where we are." She pulls out a map and it looks like we've barely begun but feels as if we've been hiking for hours.

Finally we break off the jeep road and begin to hike along a mountain track through beautiful meadows. The views are stunning and the sky is a cloudless deep blue. We go down into a valley (always a danger in the beginning of a hike), and then begin to climb again...up and up. At about 2:00 we reach another Rifugio at the end of a long climb. "I think we have to go up from here and then out across that trail you can see to the right. I think we should stop here for some tea and apple strudel." That sounds good to me.

After "lunch" we start up again. "So we are going around this mountain in the center right?" "Yes," Pam replies as if that was understood from the beginning. "We're doing a circuit." We climb for another hour or two, views opening up as we go. Finally we see the Rifugio that signals where our journey will begin to turn downhill. It is no relief for now the downhill is unremitting and steep (of course, it was steep coming up!). We pass a lake and look for the red and white marks on rocks that mark our trail. Down, down, down we go and then up some more and then we begin our final descent that even the book describes as unremittingly difficult. This is the mule track. Far, far below we see the road we will eventually join. It looks like a pencil mark in the trees. "If this is the beginning hike in the Dolomites, I think I could never do a more difficult one." "Oh," says Pam, "no...beginning means that part of this hike is what people do to get up and then they hike from refugio to refugio and stay up for days." "Ohhh," I say, "so not a lot of folks just do this as a day hike. It seems much longer than six miles." Pam stops and pulls out her hiking book. "It's not six miles, it's ten and a half." "Oh," I say, and turn back downhill, careful to navigate the two-foot drops between each set of roots or rocks.

Our knees are screaming. At one point I repeat the exclamation with which a Frenchman greeted us as we passed--he going up, we coming down on a part of the Mont Blanc Circuit in Switzerland. "SACRE BLEU! DUR! DUR!" Good God! Hard! Hard! Finally we reach the jeep track leading back to the Panda and Rifugio Malga Ra Stua. Afternoon shadows stretch across the valley and the sun has disappeared behind the tall mountains. I look at the time and announce it to Pam. "Oh," she says. "We did really well. Only 30 minutes longer than what the guide books says." "Good. I think we did really well and it was so beautiful," I say, "but honestly, I feel as if I've been hiking all day long."

After a shower, a plate of french fries, a bottle of wine and a pizza we call it a day. And what a day it was!

Pictures from our hike: from the meadow where we started to the beginning of the Mule Track.