{"id":5135,"date":"2016-09-11T15:32:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T14:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:39:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:39:27","slug":"dolomites-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/dolomites-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolomites 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you can just tell that an idea is going to end in bedlam as soon as you hear it. Which is why I was overjoyed to get a text from Alex suggesting a few days somewhere craggy on a very last-minute basis. Last time we went out together<\/a> it was into the teeth of a horrific storm, so there was every chance this holiday would be a bit special, in some meaning or other of the word.<\/p>\n

\"This

This was never going to end well.<\/p><\/div>\n

After discounting a few destinations because of rubbish flights, we decided on a visit to the Dolomites, with – somehow – rubbish flights. We each left our respective houses at 07:00 on Saturday morning, met up in Stoke and travelled the rest of the way to Southampton<\/em> for our delayed flight, then sat through a 3\u00bd hour bus transfer in the rain to our hotel in La Villa. After arriving in time for dinner at midnight we went for a walk up a hill outside town to get our bearings, and eventually settled down at 01:00 (thanks to Alex for taking the sofa-bed all week!).<\/p>\n

On Sunday<\/strong> morning we were not too sprightly, but torrential rain encouraged a slow start anyway. We decided to take the cable car up to Piz la Ila, but not until we’d visited the supermarket first for supplies.<\/p>\n

\"This

This is what happens when boys go shopping. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

The excitement of the cable car soon dissolved in the wind-blown drizzle of the top station, and so we jumped straight back on, whizzed down to the bottom and went for a walk in the valley instead.<\/p>\n

\"Very

Very rainy cable car. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Monday<\/strong> was a complete contrast, and as soon as we woke we could see the wall-to-wall sunshine which would become typical of the whole week. We were soon on a bus and two cable cars up to Jimmy’s Hut<\/a> on the southern edge of the Puez Odle National Park<\/a>, and spent the day wandering back to La Villa across the rugged limestone plateau (~2400m altitude) at a leisurely pace.<\/p>\n

\"Now

Now this feels like a holiday! \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Edelweiss.This

A rubbish picture of Edelweiss.This featured heavily in my week. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Alex gave me a bit of an education on alpine flora, and we only had to run a little bit to catch the last lift down to town (what a run it was, though – so much fun, even despite me losing my sunglasses).<\/p>\n

\"Pretty

Pretty sweet. Forcella de Gherdenacia. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Stereotypical

Stereotypical scene, but very pretty nonetheless. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Tuesday.<\/strong> Via ferrata day. Alex hired a lanyard, and we geared up at\u00a0the bottom of VF Brigata Tridentina<\/a>\u00a0whilst apologising to some Italians about the whole “Brexit” thing. I did the route four years ago<\/a>\u00a0so knew what to expect, but had great fun showing Alex how everything works and then just sitting back and relaxing on a chilled-out ascent.<\/p>\n

\"Alex

Alex slowly settling in to his first via ferrata (Brigata Tridentina, Sella Massif). \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

We whizzed back down path 666, hopped on two busses back to the hotel, spent an hour re-arranging gear, and then reversed our trip on another two busses to end up exactly where we’d been two hours earlier, but with bags containing a completely different set of gear.<\/p>\n

\"666,

666, the path number of the Beast? \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Oh yes, we had re-packed in anticipation of… the night photography trip! Having checked out some potential locations the previous day we prepared with a dinner of apple strudel in Jimmy’s Hut (it’s what all good dieticians recommend before 16 hours on the hill) and then set off into the un<\/del>known.<\/p>\n

\"Organised

Organised chaos. Five points if you can spot the ice axe and the basil plant. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

We were treated to a lovely sunset, followed by the most incredible view of the milky way and the rest of the night sky. Much time was taken with long exposures and general faffing and – as expected – Alex got some amazing results and I got some mediocre ones.<\/p>\n

\"Evening

Evening light down Val de Chedul. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Sunset

Sunset over Munt de Puez. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

When the moon rose, it became so light that headtorches weren’t even needed. At 4AM we left our star-gazing spot and walked for an hour to our sunrise location.<\/p>\n

\"Sunset

Sunset from Altapiano de Crespeina. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rejuvenating

Rejuvenating face wash, 4AM. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

We weren’t disappointed, and the only problem was trying to decide which direction to face and what to shoot.<\/p>\n

\"Sunrise

Sunrise from Forcella de Ciampei Somafurcia. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Distant

Distant hills. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

After a few more hours of shooting we finally packed away the camera gear and pointed ourselves at the nearest cable car. An ice cream in Colfosco at 9AM helped take the edge off the exhaustion, followed by us both falling asleep on the bus back to La Villa.<\/p>\n

\"The

The way home from our night out; top of the Colfosco cable car lift in morning sunlight. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Another

Another “Alex the photographer” shot, Forcella de Ciampei Somafurcia. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Wednesday<\/strong> morning involved a little nap, and the afternoon passed with a run\u00a0down from the Piz La Ila, which proved to be pretty boring even in sunshine instead of the pouring rain of the first day.<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/strong> was ‘do your own thing day’, so Alex went off looking for plants and insects (but instead found a bomb, which is exactly the kind of thing I’ve come to expect of him). I went for a run in the Fanes National Park<\/a> to the east of La Villa.<\/p>\n

\"Photo

Photo doesn’t really do justice to the awesome narrow ledge path towards the top. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

La Varella is a 3055m peak accessed up two valleys from 1750m, so I got a decent amount of climbing in on my 3 hour ascent. Most of that came pretty relentlessly in the last 40% of the distance, and was hampered a little by frequent stops in the shade of boulders as the sun got progressively higher and hotter. Towards the top things got a bit scrambly and fun, with a fantastic ledge poised above a big drop proving the key to accessing the top of the hill. However, I then\u00a0went the wrong way at the top of a gully, and ended up crossing the most amazing little ridgy bit with some fantastic exposure, to the wrong summit.<\/p>\n

\"The

The path goes along that flat pavement section right on the edge, with no alternative. Amazing fun! \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

I soon had to re-trace my steps and ended up going the right way along the wider scrambly summit ridge of Piz de Lavarella. Definitely worth the effort! After a brief stop I ran back down through the mountain furnace, now devoid of any shade whatsoever, and eventually got back to the bus stop. I drank plenty of water and slowed down to avoid over-heating, but still suffered from a bit of mild heatstroke that evening and had a weird night of being too hot, then too cold, then too hot, and so on.<\/p>\n

\"At

At the summit of La Varella. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I

I ran up the left-hand peak. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Friday<\/strong> proved that Alex had enjoyed the via ferrata earlier in the week, because he asked to go on another one. He’d had a rather heavy day on Thursday as well (too much ‘late for the cable car’, not enough water), so we settled on VF Piz du Lech<\/a>, a short 350m route running almost immediately from the top of a chairlift above Corvara.<\/p>\n

\"Alex

Alex atop Piz de Lech via ferrata. Ignore the fact he’s not actually clipped to anything; it’s not a *huge* drop. Honest. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

It was a bit more physical than Tridentina earlier in the week, despite being the same grade, and had the refreshing quality of being almost entirely on rock – there’s no metalwork (stemples, bars, etc.<\/em>) anywhere on the route, other than two ladders up a blank 30m section of wall. I was pretty exhausted after the previous day’s exertion and subsequent thermo-regulation weirdness, so I had a minor sense of humour failure approaching the top of the hill; apologies to Alex for getting a bit grumpy!<\/p>\n

That just left the final evening, so we nipped down to the river around 21:30 and took some last-minute\u00a0shots of the stars over the mountains surrounding the town. I was happier with these than the ones we took on our night out (although I did spend a sizeable portion of that just starting at the sky rather than concentrating on actually taking photos).<\/p>\n

\"Stars

Stars over Puez Odle National Park. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

By Saturday<\/strong> I was in pieces, metaphorically, and Alex looked like he was but still managed to get out for three hours of photography before our 4\u00bd hour transfer back to the airport through Italian holiday traffic. This was followed by a flight past some spectacular storm clouds<\/a>, and then a less-than-exciting drive back to Stoke to reunite Alex with his car. Almost a fortnight\u00a0later I’m just about recovered, I think. Hopefully there will be a bit of proper recovery time before the next text from Mr. Hyde.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you can just tell that an idea is going to end in bedlam as soon as you hear it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,7],"tags":[898,897,84,146,1200,1199,1202,586,396,1198,1201,1197,366],"class_list":["post-5135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","category-photography","category-travel","tag-colfosco","tag-corvara","tag-dolomites","tag-italy","tag-la-varella","tag-la-villa","tag-night-photography","tag-photography-2","tag-running","tag-south-tyrol","tag-star-trails","tag-sudtyrol","tag-via-ferrata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}