This is a story for fans of schadenfreude, a tale of what should have been a fun afternoon adventure but which actually, thanks to the compound effect of a number of small decisions, was not a lot of fun.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a strong urge to get out of the house and go for a long walk. I’d seen a long but relatively low-level route which I thought might be just the ticket, starting low and ending up (hopefully) with good views of the valley below. The plan was to finish off my work and then head off late morning to a place called Leifers, where I could begin the long but steady climb up to a beautiful old convent called Weissenstein, in the local German of this border land. To link these two points I had the choice of walking up a long, deep gorge or taking a footpath through the forest, ideally coming up one way and down the other.
In the end, I didn’t get away from work until nearly midday, which meant that I was already eating into the available daylight hours. This wasn’t serious because I knew I would be finished the walk in the dark and had brought both my headtorches to ensure I was doubly prepared. I had plenty of extra layers too as well to combat the cold because, at this time of year, once the sun dips behind the mountains in the afternoon it gets pretty chilly pretty quickly.
My next decision was to head up the gorge first, as it would be much colder in there on the way down. I still think that is a sound decision, although it is one I would later regret.
I parked up in Leifers where my attention was drawn by a South Tyrolean equivalent of lollipop men and women: a series of older people wearing high-viz tabards marked “nonno vigile” or “grandad guard”, who were helping the town’s residents to use the pedestrian crossings which, even this far north in Italy, are often little more than a pretty pattern on the road.
I set off with the dog on the road towards the gorge called the Vallarsa where, fittingly, the sun didn’t shine, We climbed so steadily that by the time we had walked 7 km, we had climbed nearly 800 m without realising it. At this point, at the neck of the gorge, we turned off onto the path towards Pietralba and for the first time encountered ice and snow under our feet. Again, no problem, I had brought my microspikes with me which are ideal for these sorts of conditions. The path now climbed much more steeply and we soon encountered the first of several trees which had fallen across the path. Fallen trees pose several problems for mountain walkers, from slowing you down and therefore exposing you to the risk of getting cold, to creating navigational difficulties as you lose your way trying to get around the obstruction. In a few cases, there have been very serious accidents as people decide to “risk it” in their attempt to keep going on their planned route, only to fall off ledges or slip on unseen ice or wet grass.
All of which is to explain that what happened to me wasn’t that serious in the grand scheme of things. There was no danger of falling off this path but as I clambered over, under and sometimes through the various trees, I failed to notice a particularly solid bit of tree which tried to insert itself into my thigh. That hurt, quite a bit. I picked myself up, thanked the dog for coming back to check on me, and carried on. A little while later I noticed that the right thigh of my trousers had changed colour to a much darker shade of blue. Of course, the problem with a cut on the thigh is that you can’t roll your trousers up to look at it, you have to start from the waist down, which is undignified at the best of times, let alone on the side of a mountain. Anyway, there was no one around to complain about me lowering my trousers, so down they went. Despite the frankly alarming amount of blood, the cut wasn’t that deep but when I rummaged in my backpack, I found I’d not picked up my first aid kit. Bugger. So I made do with a tissue and decided it wasn’t yet worth giving up on the walk. Onwards!
By now, we had climbed out of the gorge and had a relatively short distance left to climb, through another bit of forest where the snow now lay deep and crisp but not very even. More trees had been brought down by the early season snow, slowing my progress but not causing too much trouble. Eventually, later than I had hoped, I finally emerged from the trees to be greeted by the majestic sight of the beautiful Baroque sanctuary, surrounded by the snow. It was a glorious sight and, rounding the corner, I was greeted with an even better one: an unexpected vista of the Catinaccio group of the Dolomites, the massive Re Laurino wall now a soft shade of orange in the late afternoon sun.
After a quick bite to eat, we set off downhill. Straight away, a new problem arose in the form of a sign informing me that the footpath was actually closed due to fallen trees. With few alternatives, I decided to see for myself just how bad it was and, aside from a couple of minor detours, there was no issues. A few kilometres later, however, there were some issues. By now, I was near the village of Petersberg and here was another sign telling me that the path ahead was also closed. I had hoped that the tree damage would be limited to the higher altitudes because that was where the most snow had fallen. No such luck. The path was impassable.
I changed direction and headed into Petersberg as I had seen another potential path to take me down to the village. No luck there either, one was also closed. This left me with the following options:
– risk it anyway, in the dark, with the possibility of having to come all the way back up if I couldn’t get through
– go back via the gorge, which would take the total walk to over 30 km.
– erm, that’s it.
There was no other path down to where I had started and the alternative on the road was more than 20 miles, far too far to consider walking at this stage. By now, it was completely dark and I was tired. So there was only one thing to do: give up.
I was happy to discover that there was a bus down the mountain from this little village (public transport in Trentino and South Tyrol is really excellent, even in rural areas) although it would require two changes to get back to the car. So be it.
I wrote a long time ago of how dog-friendly I have found Italy to be and this extends to public transport. Dogs are welcomed on virtually all buses albeit with the strange condition that they have to wear a muzzle. I am used to this now and so is Billy. However, on this occasion, I didn’t have his muzzle so I would have to try to persuade (some say charm, some say sweet-talk) three bus drivers, possibly in German, to let me on anyway.
“Please be kind” I thought as the first bus approached. This was the most important one. I could manage without the other two but if this driver wouldn’t let me on, I was going to have to start looking for somewhere to spend the night up here. I made sure I limped towards the door as it pulled up and made sure my bloodied trousers were clear to see. Fortunately, the driver was very kind, happily welcoming me aboard and even giving Billy a fuss. The second driver asked me about the muzzle but when I said I didn’t have it he decided he didn’t care after all. The third driver didn’t even ask. Brilliant. Well done SAD bus drivers. Thank you.
The various bus rides gave me time to reflect on what I’d learned from the day: always make sure you everything you need with you, give yourself even more time than you think and find out about the local conditions. You’re never too experienced to learn something new. But, above all, I realised that if I’d decided to save the gorge for the descent, I’d have found the closed path almost straight away and saved myself a whole lot of hassle!
George's Diary 