Day 20 Neue Porze Hutte

Weird weather, cloudy on one side of a hill and clear on the other, misty but windy as well. Occasional dramatic views when the light improves but the weather is spoiling what would otherwise be an amazing walk.

Most of the people in the hutte this morning were walking the Carnic Way and on a similar schedule. So today everyone left between 8 and 9 and everyone was heading for Neue Porze Hutte.

Pfannspitz

Day 19 Obstansersee Hutte

I lay awake early this morning listening to water running outside, trying to convince myself it wasn't raining. Of course it was and the weather forecast for the next four days is bad. Depressing, but neither of us formulated the obvious conclusion and suggested heading for home. Somehow we assumed there was no choice but to go on.

Only a six hour walk today and we decided to hang around as long as possible just in case the weather improved. The notes on the Via Alpina website suggested catching the lift up the side of the valley, advice we were more than happy to accept although Paul preferred the challenge of a the steep walk up.

Drei Zinnen

Day 18 Sexton

Looking down from the Bödenalpe

Today promised to be one of the best days of the whole trip but the dreadful weather turned it into more of an endurance test.

Day 17 Durrensteinhutte

From today there are three of us - we have been joined by Paul Agius from Spain who is going to walk with us for the rest of the trip.

Not an auspicious start for the new enlarged group, poured with rain all day and we decided we would have to modify our route. Real shame because Christine and I were looking to visiting the Lago do Braies, the northern starting point for the Alta Via 1, a trip, one of our first, which we did about 10 years ago, (an amazing walk by the way). The forecast was snow above 2,000 metres and nobody seemed to think it was safe to make the trip, much of which is exposed and over 2,200 metres.

Day 16 Antholz Mitteral

Had originally planned to stay in Ahornach but we are now a day behind schedule and the hotel we had booked could no longer find us a room. So yesterday we came down to Sand in Taufers where there were plenty of hotels to choose from.

Gelltalam Meadow

Day 15 Sand in Taufere

Christine's Guest Blog

Apart from a small sting in the tail, my best ever day's high altitude walking.

We left the wonderful Edelrautehutte at 7.45, giving ourselves just a few moments to relish it's location perched on a col - huge east/west views with a glacier hanging over us to the north.

Edelrautehutte

Day 14 Edelrauthutte

Looked out of the window at 6.45 and the weather looked as bad as ever - had we made the wrong decision yesterday? Within minutes however we saw our first glimpse of blue sky and within an hour or so the mist had gone and we had perfect weather for walking - cool and clear.

Descending from Pfitscherjoch Hutte