Day 14: Cortina + Innerkofler De Luca via Feratta

Day 14 · Cortina

Wow. That was an incredible hike (EPIC) filled with stunning views, challenging sections of climbing, and WWI tunnels. I am now fully and completely exhausted. Apparently I took 200 photos today too (oops), so buckle in.

It started with a 15 minute walk (by me) to the meeting point from the hotel. From there my group (7 hikers + 2 guides) took two cars and headed up the pass I came in on yesterday to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo trailheads. There weren’t many people there when we arrived around 7:30am, so it felt very remote.

The trail started fairly easy (if you’re not an altitude wimp like I am), and very cold. I did not think about how cold it would be and only brought a sweatshirt and a raincoat with me, but fortunately I warm up the moment I start moving so I wasn’t cold long.

After a quick bathroom stop at one of the little huts they keep staffed out in the mountains (and my first time using a floor toilet – I kinda liked it?), we headed up the trail to the foot of the rock face. Once there, we donned our helmets and harnesses and headed into a short tunnel.

This area was a major battlefield during the early parts of WWI when Austria and Italy were fighting for the high mountain passes. All the tunnels I went through today were used as shelter and security as the Italian forces, and the windows out to the mountains were used to shoot from with rifles and cannons.

After we exited the tunnel, we started to ascend the mountain using the feratta lines. The guides were not so sure about my footwear, as they are completely lacking in structure and support and most hiking boots and climbing shoes are stiff and supportive. However, Marcello (one of the guides) was impressed with them in the end. They do have excellent grip, and since I never wear supportive shoes I have very strong feet and have no issues with holding myself up by my toes on tiny ledges as it turns out. He told me I was like “an elegant squirrel,” which I guess is a compliment I will take. He also at one point called them “Spiderman boots.” Truthfully, I think I should thank all my single leg squats and pull-ups for my success today. I could have done this bad boy in my Tevas if it was warmer.

Before we knew it, we were at the peak of the hike and had an absolutely stunning view of the surrounding landscape. The Tre Cime di Lavaredo are the three peaks you can see in a lot of the photos – I tried to include them where I could (and label them) to offer some sense of scale as we moved up to their height, since it’s pretty hard to tell how high up and vertical things are in photos.

After a break at the top, we began the descent – which took forever and was somehow more exhausting. We took a different way down, which took us through a very challenging stretch of ferrata that followed a ridge along what looks like a shear face from a distance. It was slow going because we had a kid in our group (he was probably 10-11ish) and he needed to take his time getting down because of his smaller size. Truly he did great – didn’t complain at all, and took photos using 4 different cameras that he hauled around in his own backpack the whole hike(a GoPro, 2 DSLRs, and a disposable Kodak film camera). A champ.

After the stretch of feratta, we headed into a long, dark tunnel down the inside of the mountain that had hundreds of steep steps, and then another series of shorter tunnels. We came across a few folks ascending that way – and I was very glad we did not have to do that horrific stair climb through a mountain. I think I would have quit!

After that we took a quick break to remove our harness and helmets and complete the descent as a regular hike. The crowds had started to build and many of the wider, gentler trails than the one we took down had hundreds of people on them. When we got back to the hut we had our first break at, it was full of people!

A miserable (for me and my achy knees) 20 minutes later we made it it back to the car and loaded up for the drive back into town. I almost fell asleep on the way back I was so tired, and then the guide dropped us in town and I still had to make my 15 minute uphill walk back to the hotel.

All told, my step counter had me at around 1700 steps – which is more than 6 miles. It’s about what I did at the botanical garden last week, but today my phone is saying I climbed 113 flights of stairs as compared to the 24 climbed on that day. My knees would agree it was about 100 more flights of stairs. I am going to be sore tomorrow, but it was pretty worth it to do this epic hike. It didn’t feel that crazy when I was doing it, but when I was going through the photos and videos for this post I was like “oh dang – that was a wild thing to do.” So incredibly beautiful and rewarding to achieve, I’m so glad I did it.

For dinner, I headed to the hotel restaurant downstairs (the least possible walking), and ordered a steak and dessert. Just what I needed. Hoping to sleep like a brick tonight!