GEA Day 1 Passo di Viamaggio

Good first day but a lot longer and tougher than I had anticipated and by the time we arrived at the hotel, at about 7.15, what little light there had been on a grey misty day had finally disappeared. I was knackered, Chris was shattered.

Another case of slightly dodgy planning. John Proud had left a comment on an early blog telling me that the buses don't run up from Sansepolcro to the start of the GEA on a Sunday but I didn't really check to see how long it would take to walk on the trail up to route. Well it takes about 4 hours, longer if, like us, you miss some of way marks. We didn't actually hit the GEA until 1.30 with the sign helpfully telling us we still had 5 hours 30 minutes to walk. Instead of the anticipated 7 hour trip we were walking for nearly 10.

Bad news - still 5 hours 45

GEA Day 0 Sansepolcro

Putting plans together in the middle of winter for all the walks you want to do over the next year (see the tab for my 2012 plan) is a nice way to fill in the short days but the schedule I produced was perhaps a bit on the heavy side. That was certainly how it felt at the end of the Via Alpina walk three weeks ago. I had hardly got home when I had to start getting ready for the next trip, a thirteen day walk along the Grande Escurscione Appenninica (GEA).

Last winter the GEA looked like a really good way to stretch out the summer and it looked different to anything I had done before. Although I've done a lot of walking in the Italian Alps I have never attempted anything further south and from an English perspective the GEA, with a Cicerone Guide by Gillian Price, is the best documented.

Compared to the Via Alpina, planning the walk has been hard work. I haven't been able been able to find any on-line resources or GPS help. The maps are poor and in the UK it was a real struggle to get hold of them. As far as I can tell there is no single source of mapping data in Italy and I've ended up with an incomplete set of maps from two different publishers. Booking accommodation has also been a hassle as several of the hotels are closed for the winter and of course the refuges are also mostly shut.


Still it looks like great walk and I've already seen some of the gorgeous hill top towns which make this part of Italy famous. The total route is nearly 400 kilometres and the plan is to see how far I can get in 13 days. Should easily do the southern part, which is lower, runs through forest and ends just before you get to Abetone, but I should also get three or four days on the higher, more spectacular ridge section which seems to characterise the northern part. The theory is that the weather should be OK, it doesn't get really wet here until
November and certainly at the moment the temperature is very pleasant.

If you have read my blogs before you will know that navigation is not always my strong point. Having a GPS trail isn't much use if you don't look at it and on this trip I don't have one. The good news is that I'm walking with my cousin Chris who is coming back for more punishment after a wet week with me in the Alps on last year's E4 trip. Chris is good with maps, although ominously, at the time of writing he has still to find his way to Sansepolcro.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

26 Days Along the Via Alpina

Just back from 26 wonderful days walking along the Via Alpina through Austria, Germany and Italy.  Everything "self-organised", it was another example of how rich the walking experience is in Europe and how lucky we are to have such accessible trips on our doorstep.  The only thing that surprised me was the fact that we only met one other person from the UK on the whole trip.

Day 26 Villach

We survived our night in the primitive Schultzhutte without any ill effects despite the interesting smell of mouse droppings on my pillow. The view from the window was stunning, a lovely clear night with a distinct view of the Milky Way above and the lights from Villach at the bottom of the valley below.

Schultzhutte

Day 25 Feistrizter Alm

There were clear signs today that the walk was beginning to fizzle out. The scenery was less dramatic and the number of other walkers dropped, despite wonderful weather and the fact that it was the weekend. At lot of Germans on the Hohnweg don't seem to bother with the last two days.

In terms of the Via Alpina schedule, today's walk combined two stages and was a big day 30 kilometres long with 1500 metres of climb. The target was the Schultzhutte at Feistrizter Alm, a hutte I hadn't been able to contact until at the last minute before we left Nassfeld the receptionist at the hotel managed to book it for us. We knew it was going to be small and remote.

The eastern Karnischer Alps are not as high as the western, everything is about 500 metres lower and as a consequence much of our route was through trees. There has been very little tree walking on this trip and it made a change to have the views so limited. You had to concentrate more on the navigation as well as the route has occasionally been destroyed by forestry work. The GPS trail on the IPhone saved us several times today.

Looking back to Egger Alm

Day 24 Nassfeld

What a difference a day makes, woke up stomach back to normal and ready to face the Austrian diet.

Zollnersee Hütte

Day 23 Zollnersee Hutte

Writing this a day late because last night I was feeling far too sorry for myself to blog. My dodgy stomach, rumbling in the background for a couple of days, was as bad as it could be with all the symptoms which need no description. I completed the walk (just) but it was not much fun.

Untere Valentinalm