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| " " |
Speechless.
Just wow.
The Dolomites have turned positively Alpish. The two live side by side, so I guess there has been some cross breeding over the years. The day was just beyond words - perfect in every sense. A good sleep.
Others complained about snoring but I didn't hear anything.
Strange.
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| Vista |
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| Upon Vista |
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| Upon vista |
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| Upon vista |
Our dining companions were mainly headed down the valley to some or other transit point. But we still had a few days to go. Our path lay back into the mountains and up. The up was a rocky side of a mountain with wide open views behind and to our right. Up ahead and to the left: rock and cliffs.
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| French family waving |
The French family were ahead of us. We could see them on the top - we waved and I'm sure they did too. Their waving must have scared a family of chamois. Five of them sprinting down the scree slope. Close enough to see and hear - but dots on a camera. They past us at full pelt. Then there was a narrowing where a couple of hikers were.
No problem for these goats - they turned right and ran up the cliff. Only the young showed any hesitation. And then they were gone. No wildlife for days then this continued flood.
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| Them |
We paused a couple of times, for pictures, to just enjoy. It really was a spectacular journey so far.
We stopped for rests and occasionally to find the way. Sometimes the signs were difficult to find.
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| Hidden sign |
It turned into a bit of a scramble at one point. A bit of a ridge...
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| Defying death |
Then across a little scree field to the col, where the Frenchman is standing.
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| Difficult path to follow |
The Frenchman turned out to be a German walking the other way, We exchanged pleasantries and turned right - off the path - to the top of our first mountain. We wee just getting into the spirit of mountaineering, when it stopped. A bit of a cliff.
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| Our only summit |
Today - definitely the best day so far.
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| Dolo-alps |
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| Come on... |
We sat at the top of the mountain, in the still warm air basking in the sun. Sand and a sea would have been nice but... Still a perfect spot for a pic-nic.
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| Lunch time |
The way down was technical - a multi-tiered valley with marmots everywhere. The goal now wasn't just to see a marmot, or even a see a baby marmot. The goal now was to let a baby marmot to crawl over you. At least two of us agreed, and came up with the idea separately - the other two don't have the patience.
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| Limestone |
And it got worse the closer we got to the rifugio. It was absolutely amazing.
We saw another 5 chamois. Or possibly the same 5 again. We talked about them later. We had each seen 10 so maybe there were 50 (#Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
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| The rifugio |
The rifugio was perched on a ledge overlooking nothing with steep hills behind. The perfect spot.
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| Tired |
The dinner was spent as usual but with the company of a couple of German hikers. And friendly abuse from the Dutch group who we had been walking with for the past 4 or 5 days.
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