Lost again!

So we have a few days in Cortina. We’re all happy to be in the quintessential Alp-style village. There are patisseries, cafes, little shops; it’s sweet.

As we walk around the town we find a few fashion-oriented outdoor stores. You know the places that focus more on snazzy outfits than real mountaineering gear. Dan buys a “North Face Cortina” shirt. So now he’s got a couple of Dolomiti hikes under his belt, he’s got his new North Face t-shirt, so he’s feeling more and more like The Man. Then we find the real deal, the Italian Guiding Association headquarters, where all the tough alpine guys hangout for discussing weather, routes, etc. You need a guide for a 5.10 grade pitch directly up Tre Cime? This is where you come. Soon we find Dan lingering out front giving advice to tourists and newbies who come walking into the shop. April thought I was obnoxious giving advice on the Coast-Coast but Dan quickly moves beyond that stage of “know-it-all”. He sees the people later in the town and he’s still giving them advice! Ha-ha!

Next day we head out after a late start (some great bakeries) to hike around the Tre Cime (3 awesome spires right in a row).

As before Dan is the Pilot, I’m the co-pilot, Navigator. Now before I get to the full story here, let it be known we had squat for maps. We had one of the hand-drawn ski area type of maps, nothing to scale, no detail. It turns out April had the right map but it was in her pack in the trunk, why? I have no idea. We manage to find the right road out of town and head to Misurina. We get to Misurina, perfect. We’re feeling pretty good about the driving and the navigating. Now we’re looking for Rifugio Arunzo, after which there should be a toll road right to the Tre Cime. We come to a fork, it’s not a stop sign, we’re still moving, we see a sign in front of us, the top two entries pointing left are Austria and Dobbiaco. Certainly we didn’t want to go there. The bottom sign says Arunzo. I say, “go right”. Dan has already started turning that way. Hmm, complicit in the key moment? Now we’re feeling good.

So I start to tell a story from the book Outliers. And this story is about plane crashes, how they’re a series of small errors, and how in certain cultures which don’t speak up and question authority (eg Korean) the small errors can add up, and then the accident happens. Then the story morphs into listening and leadership and how you need good training, and of course we’re having a grand old time. Well it turns out we were doing exactly what I was describing in my story. We had a series of small indicators that would clearly show we’re on the wrong path but we never even noticed! Our road had started to go downhill, but we should have been going uphill to some high peaks. The road straightened out when we should have hit hairpin turns. We hit a lake and a stream heading downhill our way. Our little excursion seemed to be going much further than we had anticipated. So who knows, maybe the story was so great, maybe we were enjoying the ride so much, maybe we were relying on the Pilot or the Navigator too much, maybe we liked the scenery too much. Whatever. We finally hit a fairly large town, Arunzo, this is good, right? We merrily drive thru looking for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We even saw a street called Tre Cime, but that wouldn’t be the turnoff, too small, we weren’t going to be fooled into taking that turn. Finally we’re almost out of town and we decide to stop. Dan, being the linguist, jumps out and asks some old guy for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We see the guy gesturing, pointing, lots of words and body and face movements (the Italians can’t just talk with their mouths). Dan comes back and informs us we’re 30 Kilometers past our turnoff. The mountains are back there, we’re down in the valley. What!! A 30KM mistake. Yikes. At first it seemed like the old guy must be wrong, but he was very certain.

We think a bit, study the maps again, and feeling foolish, yet enjoying our mistake immensely, we head back. And as we head back we notice all the hints and indicators that we were way off track. No skillz. Now dear readers, as you can imagine, as the Navigator I took a ton of shit on that 30KM ride back to the fateful intersection. And yes once again, I could literally feel the LOOK boring into my head from my darling wife who sat directly behind me. And as you might imagine, lots of it I reflected back on the Pilot, because after all when a plane crashes nobody mentions the co-pilot. The buck has to stop somewhere. And then there was the Overall Tour Leader, April, who hadn’t really supplied us with the right tools (maps) for the job. Jayne for the most part came out unscathed, after all she hadn’t directed us to a bad bakery had she?

We finally make it back, head towards Austria (who knew!), find the toll road and 15 minutes from the key sign we’re up at Tre Cime. Nice. It’s about a 12:00 start.

There are some clouds and the peaks are in and out. We head out on our circuit. Lots of people but they thin out. We eat our lunches of PBJ, chips, snickers. All delicious. After about another hour we hit a refugio for some tea and cake. The crowds really thin because it’s so late and we have the last section all to ourselves. Wonderful. Good thing we got lost earlier in the day. The Tre Cime are stunning. So cool. And as usual we see all sorts of war remnants. And we even see a German army patrol out for some cave work. This is the second time we’ve seen them. It’s weird. At least we think they’re Germans as they have the German flag on their arm/uniform. Hey maybe they’re still pissed they lost this area.

We get back to Cortina. Have our best meal of the trip so far at Beppe Sello, a small, quaint, expensive, Tyrolean restaurant. I was sort of going vegetarian, but managed to eat lamb, prosciutto, and even beef. Sigh. It was all delicious. Dan’s prosciutto and melon was superb. We walk back to our hotel and as has become our custom after a meal, we immediately start farting like madmen. We can’t quite figure out what the story is here. The altitude (Dan’s claim), the rich food, the cream, who knows? All I know is we leave this classy place and it’s like an oompah band marching down the street blasting away. April has to fall to her knees to stop from peeing her pants while laughing. Jayne and April then jump into the bushes as they have to pee. Is this really what it’s supposed to be like for successful, mature, sophisticated 50-something couples after a grand meal? Do other people do this?

Ok, back to hiking. Next day we do another great day hike. Here we drive north, we don’t get lost, we head uphill thru the woods and streams and start our hike at a small rifugio. The waiter has an Alta t-shirt on, so we chat him up. Last winter he spent 6 months in the western USA skiing at Baker, Whistler, Red Mtn, Tahoe, Alta/Snowbird and Mammoth. I impress him with my magnificent fall down Hangman’s Hollow at Mammoth. The hike is great and different since we’re walking thru the woods up to a grassy high meadow. Beautiful larch and pine trees. Dan takes a swim in the tarn. We head down into rain. But it stops as we finish the last few miles. Another fantastic hike. As the Tour Guide April has been hitting homeruns. Both in hikes and hotels.

We go to a smaller Trattoria, Ariston Pizzeria, for dinner. It’s fantastic. Awesome pizza, spaghetti.

This is our last night in the Dolomiti. We all agree this is a world-class place. A must see destination. Worthy of a return trip even. We’re happy we did the Cortina side rather than Bolzano. Rick Steves plays up Bolzano and we’re starting to realize all the Americans are following Rick Steves books.

We drive to Venice, return the car, get the train to Milan and Varenna. We’re hitting the Lakes district for some R+R.