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Ortisei June ’24

We Got “Gamsblut-ed”

Our familiar fly-fly-train-bus sequence to transport ourselves from the Pacific NW to the Dolomites region of the eastern Italian Alps went like clockwork in early June. All craft departed and arrived on time, as did our luggage. It doesn’t get any better than that for international travelers.

The only unwanted souvenir from all the transit was too much lateral stress on my vulnerable knee when muscling luggage around. The domino effect resulted in aggravating my chronic buttock pain because the knee was too swollen to bend it sufficiently to permit stretching the “reacts to everything” buttock muscles. The knee thing was alarming and proved to be long-lasting, but even more disturbing was our lack of excitement from actually arriving in Ortisei, our host village nestled amongst the World Heritage Site mountains.
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The wood sculpture “Bark Beetle on Horseback” was a new, temporary exhibit in Ortisei commenting on climate change. On either side of it was the decorative ironwork on the hotels, at least one dating from the 1800’s, & the golden climbers in the background on the municipal building which were added a few years ago.

The formerly hair-raising, hour-long bus ride into the region where German is preferred over Italian, on the windy, often 1-lane wide road, left us unruffled. Swaying while standing in the aisle of the packed bus and corralling our luggage between our legs while our driver seemingly relived race car video games, was unremarkable. The next day, we did the 10-mile-plus, round trip walk to the upper village of Selva in hopes of buying electronic SIM cards to have data service for the summer for 3 of our devices, but the effort only yielded a nice walk and a picnic.

The sights were pleasant, but the buzz was gone. We were crestfallen: heavily indulging in our favorite place over the last 20 years seemed to have left us satiated and yet there was no other place we’d rather be. This mountain region had the best mix of lifestyle attributes for us of anywhere, including dramatic scenery, ample steep hiking trails, affordable lodging, being welcoming, and not requiring a car to make frequent marketing trips. There was nothing to do but notice our disinterest and hope it shifted during our 3-month stay.

The next day, we pressured our tired, jet-lagged bodies into doing what we came to do, which was to hike far and high. Bill selected the Gamsblut (“chamois blood”/gahsm-blue’t) hut as our destination. The 12-mile, 2600’ gain hike to 6600’ would fill the day with 3 hours of walking each way. We packed our lunch and rain gear and were immediately drenched in sweat in the cool temperatures because of the unusually high humidity, which averaged about 70% for the duration of the hike. Once at Gamsblut, my highest priority was to dry my clothes as much as possible while wearing them, which required wind shelter. Best not to get chilled in the cool mountain air before the afternoon rains came.
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A few days later at Gamsblut Hut: Bill sitting where we had enjoyed our picnic.

“Chuiso” (closed) on Gamsblut’s door triggered crescendoing delight. The rustic, classic hut had always been open on our many previous visits, but they would be closed for 3 more days, giving us free rein to picnic on their dramatically sited, plank patio.

A built-in-place bench was perfect for sitting, the wood sided building provided welcome back support, and the adjacent 10’ high, plexiglass wind screen allowing a dramatic view of the peaks, was a trophy find. We’d never had a great place to comfortably picnic on this windy mountain face, but today was our lucky day. Having an unexpected, relaxing, oasis triggered the classic “in the Dolomites” euphoria in us.

We kicked off our shoes, our weary muscles relaxed into the physical support of the wooden bench and wall, and a bit of sun broke through the clouds, which warmed us and lifted our spirits. Our homemade tuna salad entrée with caraway seeds tasted especially good. Our usually indulgent, 45” lunch filled an hour, and our hardworking feet enjoyed the warmth radiating from the sun-warmed planks into them through our heavy, damp socks. We luxuriated in the rare wind shelter and repeatedly surveyed the panorama before us for what was new and what was the same. We were in our happy place and didn’t want to leave.
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From miniatures to monumental, sacred to profane, creative expression abounded on the streets & paths of Ortisei.

After too much fumbling from having deeply surrendered to the treasured mountain ambiance, we loaded our light packs to begin the 3-hour descent. Our fully refreshed bodies weren’t eager to go and the typical high from splitting an 86% chocolate bar after lunch slowed our pace.

If the “Severe Weather Threat” dumped the forecast rain, we wouldn’t care: we were warm, dry, rested, fed, and our minds would be floating while our legs, habituated to mountain slopes, would navigate the steep grades on autopilot. Our high-quality rain suits would do their jobs in a downpour and our stowed trekking poles would be employed if the surfaces became slippery from the rain. The magic was back and the chocolate-high would prove to be more durable than usual, seeing us through the entire 3-hour journey back to the valley, not just the usual hour or so.

While we descended, I laughingly proclaimed we’d gotten “Gamsblut-ed”; we’d been gobsmacked by the cheery mountain hut we’d always admired but hadn’t patronized. Had they been open, we wouldn’t have gone in. My gut can’t tolerate the usual cuisines that include wheat, garlic, onions, and a long list of other popular carbohydrates. To have their charming patio to ourselves while eating our own food was perfect for me; the ever-popular alcoholic drinks they served had no place in our chosen lifestyle. We savored the experience as the one-off that we knew it was and were delighted to deeply etch it into our memory banks along side other special past experiences on the same mountain.

Gamsblut first became embedded in our brains in 2014 when we participated in a 9.2 mile, 4200’ gain mountain run to 8200’ that began in Ortisei’s town center, like this day’s hike had begun. We mostly fast-walked the event, just barely completing it allowed 2 ½ hours.

The mountain run had been a one-way event to the peak. Gamsblut was the major way point 2/3’s of the way along the steep course, situated where the deep forest trail opened onto the expansive mountainside pastureland that doubled as a ski slope in the winter.
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Artwork, especially wood sculptures, were everywhere we looked in Ortisei.

Unlike this day on which we would hike out-and-back, riding the lift down to the valley was included in the mountain run participation fee. The event, that had been a reach for us and for which we trained for for one year, permanently changed our lives: it opened the door for us becoming long distance hikers. Now, Gamsblut was no longer just a reference point on an historic route for us but had also become the location of a treasured memory punctuating this wonderful day as hikers 10 years later.

Going For It
We are acutely aware that our 3 months in the Dolomites is our primer fitness opportunity for the entire year and we lunged at the opportunity to ramp up our conditioning. Despite the forecast of an inch of rain some days, we walked every day of our 3-week stay in Ortisei and were only clad in rain gear one of those days. Because the rains began the day after our spectacular hike to Gamsblut, we primarily stuck to streets and urban paths the next week and yet, had no trouble adding elevation gain to our spreadsheet.

“Going up” was easy in Ortisei. By being a little alert, the visitor soon discovers the mountainside village has a maze of staircases and trails sprouting from and between the steep, narrow streets. One zigzagging path paralleling the funicular station near the city center began with steel grating for stairs, which morphed into a narrow wooden staircase as we walked higher, and then degraded to small logs defining the edges of the dirt steps until intersecting with a one-lane, paved street. In mere minutes of serious, sustained, huffing and puffing and sweating, we’d knocked out 20% of our targeted 1000’ of elevation gain for the day. I suddenly realized we had a new problem, which was to temper our enthusiasm for filling our exercise spreadsheet deficits to avoid injury.
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There was often humor in Ortisei’s mix of artistic expression.

We’d set an ambitious goal for 2024, which was to walk upwards 350,000’, or 66 miles. Our peak performance in 2017, the beginning of recorded history for our stats, was 500,000’. Three years of medication side-effects for me, covid restrictions, and my spinal issues had about halved our annual average elevation gain from its peak back then, and we had set an intention to claw our way back to a higher level of fitness. We continued to quantify our progress by tracking miles walked, elevation gain attained, and the gold standard, VO2max, for which our iPhones do the work of estimating cardiopulmonary function.

Back in the years of our higher fitness levels, we easily logged 10,000’ of elevation gain a week in the Dolomites without monitoring it and instead, it was a byproduct of exploring interesting trails. In our first 5 days in Ortisei this June, we knocked out 8,000’ of gain and would easily exceed 10,000’ at the end of the first 7 days. Such stellar performance right out of the box was grand because we are firm believers in the potency of walking or cycling up steep hills for optimal health, but we were simultaneously heightening our risk of injury by abruptly increasing our output. I proposed we tighten the reins for 2 to 3 weeks by not exceeding 10,000’ a week to let our tissues re-adapt to the unique stresses of so much steepness, both going up and going down.
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There was no shortage of gold gilding.

I’ve always viewed hiking uphill and downhill as distinctly different sports, both requiring deliberate conditioning. Rarely, do we hike “all up” or “all down”, so our training is usually balanced between the 2, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that our bodies adapt to the 2 different challenges at the same rates.
Bill must be particularly attentive to caring for his calf muscles when climbing for days on end, whereas my upper quad muscles are quite reactive to descending. It was affirming that our bodies were tuned well enough to, as one cardiologist said to Bill years ago: “Go out and thrash ourselves” but we’d save being reckless for later in the month. It was too easy to log 1000’ of elevation gain in a mile, so under-doing would require vigilance.

Clearly, it was time to turn more attention to being lookie loos while we strolled the village streets rather than charging up hills. In this mountain valley, that has been heralded since the 1500s for its talented and prolific wood sculptors, there was much to admire in shop windows, at artisans' home workshop displays, and embedded in exterior architectural details. We’d also be slack-jawed staring at the fearless, dense, building and renovating projects on the very steep hillsides and gawked at what were surely 5-star boutique hotels being slipped-in before the moratorium on adding more tourist rooms to the valley fully took effect.

Between the houses and hotels, some built in the 1800’s, were pastures seeded with colorful blooms to nourish the thousands of bees whirring around clusters of colorful bee boxes. The depth and breadth of eye candy in these mountain villages rich with thriving traditional culture had always added to our pleasure with being there and it was time to give them a fresh look.

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Another political statement, this time in the woods, about the pro’s & con’s of re-introducing wolves into the environment.

Tourist’s Watching Tourists
Ortisei, Italy, the hub village for the 3 Ladin-speaking villages in Val di Gardena in the Dolomites, is THE international destination in the area. Many more of its businesses are open year-round than in St Cristina or our favorite village, Selva, and the hoards of delighted tourists give the small town center at the lowest elevation, a palpable buzz. Because of its position in the valley, Ortisei has multiple, large, centrally located, upscale hotels with chalet-themed exteriors.

This summer, for the first time, observant Muslims were the most eye-catching, identifiable group in the crowds. Previous seasons, we’d hardly noticed any women in black, floor-dragging, flowing coats, all with head scarves, but only a few with face coverings. But this season, a group of 4, with a male in the lead (so much so that he looked detached from the 3 trailing women) was the common group configuration. They couldn’t be missed when they walked widely spaced and in single file across the highway at the roundabout, their little strung-out procession blocking both lanes of traffic, and occasionally ad-libbing by not crossing at the designated crosswalks.
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A nod to the toil of ploughing the earth, mining, & timber harvesting that sustained the region before tourism became an important industry.

I overheard one woman lamenting to our hostess when she was checking out that “I’m back in my dress now, and out of pants.” Her party was on their way to Florence, which apparently triggered the attire change. We didn’t actually see any traditionally dressed Muslim women, or women in head scarves and pants, on the trails, so perhaps they were only sightseeing and not engaged in sports. This woman did catch my eye, however, because her shorter beige, not black, coat was a more fashionable cut with her ankles prominently on display.

The Asian hikers, mostly Japanese, turned our heads like in years past, because their multiple groups scooted about town, at the bus stops, and the trails in tightly compressed packs of a dozen or more. They were always outfitted so similarly to each other that I imagined their tour guide had accouterment-check before they headed out each morning.

They carried themselves like lean and fit athletes and had the look of highly motivated and experienced hikers and perhaps, mountaineers. They dressed similarly to us, with long pants, long sleeves, and sun hats, though they typically wore boots and ankle gaiters. This year, more casually dressed, Asian tourists, were also present in droves.
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Visiting our Swiss friends, Diana & Juergen, at their lovely hotel above Ortisei on a rare day without Saharan dust diminishing otherwise grand mountain panoramas.

Unlike the elbow-to-elbow formations of the serious Asian hikers, the Germans and Austrians often were in strung-out groups that could number from 20-50 and often monopolized a trail. Our hearts would sink when spotting one of these huge groups up ahead that sometimes made it impossible to pass them, going either direction. Whereas the Asian groups had an unpretentious air of high competency, these Germanic hikers were causal and looked like they were doing what they had been doing their entire lives: going for a walk in the mountains with a group of friends.

Years ago, some Germans had instructed us that theirs was the right pace and we should be doing the same instead of speeding along. Unlike the Asians and Muslims, they were inclined to be happy, noisy groups, often dressed in shorts and short sleeved plaid shirts in electric blue or lime green. Serious boots were usually their favored footwear.

We North Americans and the Brits were fewer in number, usually in pairs instead of groups, with far less standardized hiking attire. We always drew plenty of stares when in our very unpopular clothing ensembles chosen as a first-line defense against the sun’s rays. Our high UPF long sleeved shirts, long pants that didn’t convert to shorts, sun hats, sun gloves, and minimalist shoes were baffling to others. We looked like aliens, clueless to the inferred dress code. Few could guess our nationality and they were further mystified if they saw us long enough to recognize us as being competent in the mountains. The stares we often drew said that picture we presented clearly didn’t add up in the minds of other hikers.
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A snowstorm early in our June stay meant the postponement of our hiking at higher elevations.

At least early in the summer season, a few Asians took the prize for being distinctly fashionable in Ortisei, where the locals also had an eye for fashion. The photo I wished I had that I didn’t take out of politeness, was of a young Asian couple with a very short wheel-based, very tall, all-white stroller, standing at the end of pavement that abruptly became a steep, downhill, gravel trail. They were smartly dressed in urban wear and her dainty, low-heeled dress sandals were totally unsuited to the terrain. What blew us away when we passed them while they were surveying the hostile scene, was that the stroller was bright white from the wheels on up and was carrying a white miniature poodle with a red ribbon top knot. They looked perplexed and like they’d only be enjoying the dramatic panorama of the mountains at Alpe di Siusi from the adjacent hotel terrace. We could only imagine the ensuing conversation with their travel agent or advisor that night.

In town, 2 young Asian women in almost matching attire, turned my head. They had very billowing, wide legged pants of a suitable fabric for hiking but of a shape that would be difficult to hike in. I thought of the tall meadow grasses through which our trail the day before traversed and of the annoying drag even our trim-fitting pants created, and their pants would have been extremely cumbersome there. Oddly, the young women had fashionable but scant, midriff tops and something akin to runner’s hydration vests. I was reminded of one of my favorite observations, “You are always in a costume, even when wearing nothing,” and theirs were slanted more towards fashionista costumes with a nod to the outdoors than the rest of us. They reminded me of the southern Italians who travel into these mountains and buy head-to-toe hiking outfits, including boots, that probably get no farther than the sidewalk cafes. Everyone’s sense of what will work for them in a new environment is different and it was always fun to notice and imagine what each of these groups thought of us.
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Asian tourists with their own costumed entertainers.

Bill, however, had the most bizarre cultural experience of our stay in Ortisei when he encountered a small group of Asian hikers photographing 3 women from their group who were in long ruffled dresses with ruffled accessories, frolicking in the meadows and with the cows, much to delight of all in their group. We couldn’t make up a story to explain the cultural context for their rolling entertainment and would love to know how this bit of theater was billed in their tourist brochure.

A few days later, another scene was before us that I wished I could have captured in a photo, which was of 2 young Muslin women with a trailing male escort heading up the dirt route to the top of a zip line. The trio were wearing their safety harnesses and the 2 women in pants and headscarves looked like they were already having a peak experience. The eager confidence in their fast paces and the expressions of overflowing joy and determination on their faces was riveting. They had an air of smugness, like they had found the sweet spot between conforming with their culture while simultaneously being liberated from it to have a high adventure. Oh, to be able to bottle that exuberance and take a whiff of it now and then!

As the days rolled by, the mix of visitors expanded. One morning, a guided group of American tourists passed by us on a path just after we’d seen a parade of about a dozen Porsches with French plates roll through the center of town. Later, the in the afternoon, a group of colorful, noisy Vespa’s traveled through the village center, like the Porsches had done, and on any day, at any time we were likely to see a half dozen or dozen motorcycles heading up or down the mountain. In a few more days, it was a pack of mostly red Ferrari’s with Italy and German plates struggling to control their accelerations while going uphill in bumper-to-bumper traffic and negotiating a roundabout. The group play was on!
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Late-model entrants in the 2024 Carbage Run from the Netherlands paused in Ortisei.

We thought we’d seen it all near the end of our 3-week stay in Ortisei when loud sirens and honking horns drew our attention to the main road below our trail. We were baffled. Their speakers amplified voices and mechanical noises above the too-loud level of emergency vehicles, and we only got glimpses of bizarrely painted vehicles through the trees, with odd shapes on their roofs that reinforced “something weird is going on”. We never expected to have an answer, but once back in town, we spotted a half dozen parked vehicles that clearly told the story: it was the annual “Carbage Run” from the Netherlands.

Later online reading revealed that the possible 1000 cars in the rally were supposed to be valued at less than 500 Euros and be more than 15 years old. Indeed, there were a few junkers in the procession, but many of the 50 or so cars we saw were late models in fine condition. It was a mind-blowing 15 country, 5-day rally and we estimated they were likely into Day 3.

Standard, but not universal, outfitting included 2 spare tires, a fire extinguisher, and speakers on the roof top. One car rolled by with life-sized mannequins strapped on the roof, another had human-sized, green, stuffed alligator and another soft toy on top. We saw a couple of drivers, all 25–45-year-old men, and they appeared surprising clean and clear eyed for presumably being on the road, non-stop, for a few days. “Driving wimps” came to mind again: we’re only good for a 4-5 hour driving day, so their feat was unimaginable to us.

Next Stop: Selva di Val Gardena
Our 3 week-stay in relatively cosmopolitan Ortisei flew by and it was time to relocate in Selva, our favorite Dolomites village, for 2 months. Selva wasn’t generally open for business when we arrived in the mountains in early June. Our planned delayed arrival in Selva gave time for the last snows for the season to fall in the mountains and for much of the lingering snow from the winter to clear from the trails. Located at 5,000’, a 1000’ higher than Ortisei, meant more of our hiking miles would be spent above tree line, which we preferred. We hoped the unusual stint of haze from high humidity and Saharan sands carried by the wind to Ortisei were behind us so we could begin taking panoramic photos.

The hoards of international tourists would largely be absent in Selva, at least for a few weeks, decreasing our entertainment but also fostering a calmer ambiance: we were ready to enjoy the more familiar tranquility on our favorite mountains.

See you there!