Lunch Run

Evening Ice Skate ⛸️

Afternoon Run

Morning Run

Alta Via 1 complete! 80+ miles and 25,000+ feet of elevation gain in 5 days. The best views came on the final day and I ended the day with a fast finish, racing an Italian man!

Woke up at 6:15am and packed my bag before breakfast at 7am, so that we would be able to leave right after we finished eating, this final day being our longest day (best for last!) We departed Rifugio Carestitato at 7:40am, our last hut of the hike. 🥲

The first part of the day went by quite smoothly and we made it to Paso Duran (82km) rather quickly. After a brief stretch running on the road, we started a climb. At 10am, I got viciously charged at by an offleash dog, and I saw my life flash before my eyes. Luckily, the dog did not attack me and I told the dog's owner who was apologizing that it's okay. That episode was a bit too much excitement, though, even for me.

Afterwards, we continued climbing until we made it to Rifugio Pramperet at 11am, where we grabbed a quick bite and had a ham + cheese sandwich (I wish they had mayo or any dressing -- why do Italians like all their breads so plain?) and a crostata (which was delicious). There was also a cute mountain kitty at this rifugio! We made it quick and by 11:40am, we were back on the trail.

The next part of the trail was arguably the best part of the whole AV1. We made a big climb up route 514 and saw mountain chain after mountain chain in every direction. We chatted a bit with a Korean guy we had seen from earlier (ahn young ha se yo!) and took some pictures before climbing even higher onto a ridge that I consider to be one of the best views I've ever seen. The weather was perfect, the view was perfect, and it all made me really happy! 😀

I dilly-dallied for maybe a bit too long admiring the view and had to run to catch up. This was probably one of the most treacherous parts of the hike as well, with AJ and Regina from last night's hut describing it as "hiking on a razor's edge". Nevertheless, we made slow and steady progress and continued on our way down through more marvelous landscapes. We also filmed some fun trail running footage (promotional materials, anyone?).

At 1pm, we started our massive 6,000+ ft descent as we entered the clouds. This is the biggest descent I've ever done, and despite my best efforts to trail run as much of it as possible, my knees were still not happy with all the downhill load. We made a quick stop at Rifugio Pian de Fontana at 2pm, but with no time to spare, continued onward after just a short break. We continued to make slow and steady progress, trying to catch one of the 4:27 or 5:27 buses at La Pissa.

At around 3:30pm, when we still had around 4 miles and 1,200 ft of elevation descent to go, I said we could probably make the 4:27 bus at La Pissa, but Angela said she didn't believe me and I considered taking it on as a challenge. After initial hesitation, I decided to go for it around 4pm and started hybrid hiking / trail running around a 15min/mi pace. That's when a random Italian man started running behind me and I decided I should race him to the finish.

The man was relentless and didn't seem to stop for anything, and I ended up running my first sub-10, then first sub-8 minute miles of the entire hike. He pushed me hard, but damn, running downhill down the trail was fun. I think I particularly enjoyed the fast decision making part of the process, where you have to be both fast and careful with deciding every single next step. Maybe trail running is where it's at after all. 🤔 I ended up making it to the road at La Pissa, the official end of Alta Via 1 at 4:25pm. 80+ miles and 25,000+ feet of elevation gain in 5 days, officially done! 🥳

Next, I backtracked on the trail to find Angela again (and to get in some extra mileage / vert hehe), and we finished the route together before waiting for the 5:27 bus to Belluno. We chatted with a cool Australian lady from Perth who we had seen earlier on the descent to Lagozuoi, who mentioned she was doing some hikes while spending time in Italy with her partner's family in Bologna (they first met in Bali 😅), although the husband and kids were at the beach.

After we arrived at Belluno, we were starving and got pizza and gelato (very yum), as well as sushi and more candy. Annoyingly, we either missed the 6:30pm bus to Calalzo or it just never came, and we were only able to leave Belluno on the 7:15pm bus (number 009). The sushi restaurant was interesting because the owners only spoke Italian and Chinese, and no English (I always found this to be cool).

It took another hour to get to Calalzo, and there was supposed to be a 8:50pm bus that would bring us back to Cortina (where we left our bags), but it appears the bus just never came. Furthermore, none of the taxi operators were still working and we kept getting directed to calling the same random Italian guys on the phone, who kept telling us they were busy (annoying, but probably fair since it was past 9pm). Finally, Angela was able to connect with one guy (shoutout to Giovanni), who was willing to drive down to Calalzo to pick us up and drive us back to Cortina, albeit at a quite steep price. We took the L and agreed to it.

I laid down on the bench outside the train station, and dozed off until the taxi finally picked us up at 11pm, with us finally reaching the hotel at midnight. It was the end to a very long day, as well as an even longer but incredible five-day fastpacking experience through the many varied landscapes of the Dolomites. Kind of crazy how much happened in such a short timespan!

There will probably be more thoughts to come, and I will try to write a blog post on my AV1 experience, but for now I would just like to thank Angela for being a great trail partner / friend! I would also definitely recommend AV1 for anyone that's interested. That's all for now and thanks for reading / following along if you've made it this far. :)

Until next time! 😴

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Frank Lin

Alta Via 1 - Day 5 (79–120km) 🇮🇹

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