Passo Pordoi

Thinking that a week later, we'd be back in full-on Austin summer, Tim and I took one more hiking trip in the mountains while the kids were at summer camp. We headed out to Passo Pordoi. We'd driven through here a few years ago when we were in Trento, but we only stopped for coffee that time. On the way, we stopped at Lago di Carezza (we had stopped here the last time, too). It is beautiful, but swarming with tourists. Once we reached Passo Pordoi, we took the funivia up the mountain to the "rifugio" at the top, where we had some lunch. It was kind of pathetic. We decided to hike down. My foot had explicitly requested an "easy" and "not too rocky" hike. In the pictures, this one looked like it fit the bill. In actuality, 90% of this hike was made up of loose stones that averaged about 3cm in diameter and were loosely packed, several centimeters deep. (See what I did there? With the metric system?) The other 10% was rocky interspersed with super slick mud (did I mention it was raining?). Anyway, I didn't fall down (Tim did). Unfortunately, it was a bit overcast, so the sweeping views one can apparently get from up here were hit or miss. We did catch sight of some people tightrope walking across a canyon more than 100m up in the air. Impressive. On the drive back to retrieve our children from Amy and GP (once again so gracious to allow us a full day out), we also stopped at WWI fort before swinging by a "grappateca" in Cavelese for some grappa to bring back to Austin.

In the mist there, you might be able to make out some people on one of the ledges. That's one end of the tightrope.

There they are again...

I admit, I was thinking of August in Austin while standing near the snow...

It was high. 2953 meters, if I remember the number exactly.

Yup. That's not a spot on your screen. That's a dude standing on a cable.

This is not a go-cart track. This is the road up to the pass.

We called these the Lorax flowers.

These are at the fort. You can't go inside (it's very run down), but it's easy to see why it made a great site for a fortification.

This is actually the view from Amy and GP's driveway after we picked up the kids. Lest they take for granted where they live...