The Vagabond Hiker

Hiking, trekking, and climbing the world

Dolomites hikes and ferratas: the Pale di San Martino

Update 3 October: My plan was to be hiking in Turkey the first two weeks in October (see the final paragraph of this post). Unfortunately, the night before my departure I learned that the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) removed Turkey from its travel corridor list. Needless to say, my two first group trips since March’s shutdown were immediately cancelled. Hence I am staying in Hastings until my planned departure for Lanzarote in mid-November. Whether I post again from here is questionable, but make no mistake, I am planning some local hikes!

About a two-hour drive northwest from Venice lies a portion of the Dolomites that I had yet to explore. The territory of the Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino is located in eastern Trentino, at an altitude ranging from just under 1100 m to a maximum of about 3200 m on the summit of Cima Vezzana. It includes the catchment areas of three streams, comprising the Trentino part of the Pale di San Martino group to the east, the eastern offshoots of the Lagorai chain to the west, and to the north, the Paneveggio State Forest, one of the most famous forest complexes in the Alps. Amazingly to me, the park has no English Wikipedia page, but the Parks Italy website does have a comprehensive English version here.

I stayed in a typical Airbnb apartment in the main north-south valley of Primiero, in the village of Siror. With gorgeous views of the valley and mountains, it was a dramatic change after my five-plus months in England and an ideal base for exploring the area.

As I’ve now published uncounted blog posts from the Dolomites*, I limited the photos considerably. In particular, the photos of flora either had to be substantial improvements on my earlier attempts or of species I had not previously shared. Even so, with the amazing Dolomite landscapes, more than thirty made the cut. My sources for the hikes were the free version of the Alltrails app on my phone, Kompass map #622, Pale di San Martino, Cicerone’s Shorter Walks in the Dolomites (on my Kindle) and their Via Ferratas of the Italian Dolomites: Vol 2. The Parks Italy website above also it a good source, had I known about it ahead of time.

*Actually, this post is the fourth, excluding the Lago Garda post from last year

Evening view of the Gruppo del Cimonega from my south balcony. Parts of the town of Primiero and the village of Tonadico are in the middle ground.
Siror village, looking north up the Primiero Valley from my west balcony. There were many walks possible along the Torrente Cismon (out of the photo to the left) as well as on the slopes above the valley.
Siror and Torrente Cismon. Multi-use paths extend for miles along the banks of the river through the Primiero Valley.
The picturesque Hotel Siror, five minutes’ walk from my apartment. The village featured a few basic shops and a couple of cafes and restaurants.
A view from the slopes above Siror, about an hour’s walk from my apartment. Sass Maor in the southern Pale di San Martino is in the clouds here.
A cute woodshed, taken from the same spot as the previous photo
Grass of Parnassas (Parnassia palustris), seen later on the same hike. A much better photo that the one I shared a couple of years ago.
Lunch view at Lago Pradadali. My first major hike was a loop of about 6 hours on the altopiano of Pale di San Martino, at elevations between 2200 to 2630 meters. Very desolate indeed!
Moretti’s Bellflower (Campanula morettiana). Peeping out of a rock crevice, I believe it’s the first time I’ve spotted this bellflower with its distinctive hairy leaves.
Another lunar landscape, this of Cima della Fradusta with its glacier remnant on the Pale San Martino
Alpine thrift (Armeria alpina) with pollinator, still blooming late in the season. Another flower first for me.
Rifugio Rosetta set amidst the landscape of the altopiano. The Rosetta funicular top station is just off to the left here. Taking it this day eliminated the brutal 1100 m ascent/descent from/to the resort town of San Martino di Castrozza.
A stream above Lago di Calaita. For my next hike I did a 3 plus hour loop to the west of the Primiero Valley. Starting at a lower elevation, it proved quite a contrast to the altopiano! This so-called “holistic” trail had many interpretative placards.
Val Pisorno, heading up to Cima Grugola. This was just above treeline, at about 2000 meters. Geologically, the mountains west of me are the “metamorphic basement,” comprised primarily of gneiss. Thy are quite distinct from the dolomitic limestone of the Pale di San Martino group.
German Gentian (Gentianella germanica). These were a fairly common sight at lower elevations
Marmot on the trail up the headwall to Cima Grugola. Usually I just heard them whistling, but this fellow was very bold.
Single-flowered knapweed (Centaurea nervosa) detail with fly. I’ve shared a so-so image of this flower before. Despite its name, I think it’s cool-looking.
Lago Colbricon, near the Passo Rolle (1980 m) at the head of the Primiero Valley. I did a 4-hour loop hike that took in this popular destination, complete with a rifugio (on the far right here), before climbing further up into the mountains.
“View” east from Forcella Ceramana. Just to disabuse you of the notion that all my hikes invariably featured glorious weather and fantastic views!
View east from Punta Ces. Of course, an hour later the weather had cleared sufficiently for this photo! Lago Colbricon is on the left here. Cima Vezzana can be seen on the right, emerging from the clouds. At 3192 meters, Vezzana is the high point in the Pale di San Martino.
Returning to the Pale di San Martino altopiano, I spent two days climbing via ferratas. At this point, at Forcella Stephen above the clouds, I had just completed the easy-to-moderate VF Gusella.
After VF Gusella, I added a second ferrata, the VF Vecchia. Here I am looking down at its start, an easy 45 minute descent into Cadin Soraranz. A large part of this ferrata was aided with an excess of stemples (shown).
Adenostyles (Adenostyles alliariae). Not particularly rare, but the first time I’d identified this flower in the Dolomites.
Willow-leaved Gentian (Gentiana asclepiadea). A close up of a flower I’ve shared previously on my blog. While the two ferratas just described started at the Rosetta Top Station on the altopiano, the long descent to Castrozza afterwards was on foot through the forest, not by funicular!
View NW to Catena del Lagorai from Cima Tognola. This was an easy 3-plus hour loop hike – almost all descent – starting from the top of the cable car which ascended directly west from San Martino di Castrozza. Many mountain bikers used some specially-made trails that descended from the cable car top station, not shown to the right here.
Perhaps a pale morph of Campanula barbata, the hairy bellflower, glistening in the morning dew.
Cima Vezzana with San Martino di Castrozza below. This photo was taken on a splendid trail that gradually descended from one rifugio to another back towards Castrozza on the Cima Tognola loop hike.
Crossing the Tognola stream, nearly back to my car. I saw almost no one on this pleasant midweek outing.
Back on the altopiano for a second round of ferratas: Porton and Velo. Rhaetian poppies (Papaver rhaeticum) at the base of VF Porton. I’ve seen (and shared!) many of this species, but always find enjoyment in their sunny dispositions.
Photo taken during the ascent of VF Porton; note the cable on the lower left. Rifugio Pradadali is situated on an outcrop near the center of the photo. The peaks to the right boast some popular technical climbing routes.
Val Primiero with San Martino di Castrozza and the Catena del Lagorai in the background. Following my descent route on VF Velo (no worthwhile photos to share), I repeated my previous walk-out back to Castrozza, with an extra hour of descent from Rifugio Velo thrown in for good measure.
The final via ferrata I did was an expert one up Val Canali, a side valley 15 minutes drive to the east of Siror. Thought very short, VF Canalone was the toughest ferrata I did this year. Even with the approach hike in and back out, I was easily home for lunch. Here the Pale di San Martino can be seen in the morning light to the north of the path up to the start of the ferrata near Rifugio Treviso.
Due to the high contrast, a not-very-good photo of Rifugio Treviso and the Pale di San Martino from VF Canalone. (Yes, I could have taken a burst shot at incremental exposures and then combined them for a far better photograph, but remember that I was hanging off the ferrata cables at the time)! Below treeline, the route reminded me of the ferratas around Lago Garda with the roots and mossy rock. Fortunately, nearby was a much easier descent route.

The weather has just turned distinctly autumnal, with heavy rain and even snow expected in the next couple of days. Although the snow line is a bit above Siror, the Dolomites are definitely entering a hibernation stage, to be awakened in late November for winter sports. I instead am heading to Venice for the weekend before returning to England on Tuesday. Four days in La Serenissima without cruise ships should be an experience indeed. Following a short layover in England, during the first two weeks of October I will be hiking in Turkey: first in the otherworldly Cappadocia, and then along the Lycian Way on the southwest coast. My first group trips since the shutdown in March, those too promise to be interesting experiences.

Until next post, enjoy nature where ever you happen to be.

l’escursionista vagabondo

Walking west Cornwall

It scarcely seems possible, but it has been more than two years since I spent an enjoyable month traipsing around Cornwall. I was at first skeptical of writing another blog post as I had done two already that I thought must have encompassed all that Cornwall had to offer. But of course that’s not true; in reviewing my photos, I realized that west Cornwall, bounded roughly by St Ives and Penzance to the east, has its own distinctive look and feel. For this post I completed a series of day hikes: some loop hikes that incorporated both coastal and inland portions, and some simply point to point walks along the South West Coast Path. For the latter the convenient Cornwall bus system helped immeasurably. Using my Ordnance Survey (OS) app — with premium subscription — I was able to plot out these custom hikes, download the maps, and follow them with the GPS function on my phone. I used an OS guide book, Cornwall Outstanding Circular Walks, for ideas. Though only four years old, sadly it isn’t currently available from either Amazon or AbeBooks.

West Cornwall, Google Earth. The Yellow pins show some of places mentioned in the photos. The photos roughly follow an anti-clockwise loop, although in reality the hikes had no such order.

Pendeen loop from Botallack: 8.5 miles and 1100 ft elevation gain. Fantastic views, old mines, and a neolithic dolmen high on the moors. What’s not to like about this hike?

The Neolithic Chûn Quoit. This dolmen, from about 2400 BC, is one of the best preserved in Cornwall, never having its capstone resettled.
A shaggy-looking Highland Bull along the Southwest Coast Path (SWCP) near Morvah. He seemed very chill. Perhaps he was unable to see me walk by?
Picturesque Portheras Cove, east of Pendeen Watch. I had the small beach to myself this morning.
The Old Count House (a mine’s administrative building) and flowers, perched behind and above the lighthouse, Pendeen Watch. The fog this day reminded me of coastal California.
An engine house at the Levant Mine. Copper and tin ores were mined more than a mile out from beneath the sea bed.

Lands End loop from Sennen Cove: 6.5 miles and 1000 ft elevation gain. This short hike takes in the most westerly point in mainland England.

A view towards Lands End from the north. My walk started at Sennen Cove, which boasts the longest beach in West Penwith. The Lands End hotel is just visible. It seemed mostly empty.
A natural arch south of Lands End. Yes, it was another misty day!
Stunning heather (Calluna vulgaris) in the mist near Nanjizal.
Detail of wood betony (Stachys officinalis). Despite the late season, I did see a variety of wild flowers on my walks.
Four seals “bottling.” They can sleep for hours floating with little more than their nostrils above water.
A rock formation seen at low tide at Nanjizal beach
Kelp on Nanjizal beach at low tide
Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)

SWCP from Porthcurno to Penzance: 10.5 miles and 1750 ft elevation gain. A one-way bus fare took me to the start, a popular beach; my apartment in Penzance greeted me five hours later at the end of this longish walk.

Fishing boats in the mist, Penberth Cove
Spider and web detail. The water droplets looked like strings of pearls on this damp morning.
Lush woodland in the St Loy valley
Allotments (community gardens) with a view, Mousehole.
Newlyn Harbor, ebb tide. This village is an important fishing port, just to the west of Penzance.

SWCP from Marazion to Praa Sands: 6.75 miles and 1100 ft elevation gain. The village of Marazion is 2 miles east of Penzance with the tidal island of St Michael’s Mount a half mile offshore in Mounts Bay.

St Michael’s Mount. Currently the castle and gardens are open only about four hours a day near low tide when you can walk cross the causeway.
Perran Sands and St Michael’s Mount vista
Cudden Point and kestrel. The high winds this day didn’t seem to bother these hardy little raptors at all.
Bessy’s Cove. To me it looks straight out of Poldark.
Praa Sands. Even the hardy English were not in much evidence on this blustery day.

Lizard Point loop: 7.75 miles and 1100 ft elevation gain. An interesting hike to the most southerly point of mainland England. I did it clockwise to reach the popular Kynance Cove beach before it got too crowded.

View with Sea Aster (Aster tripolium) along Kynance Cliff
Kynance Cove. Everyone seems to be observing social distancing, though of course it was only 10 AM!
St Grada and Holy Cross. This out of the way church was a great lunch stop.
View from Cadgwith of cargo ships and tankers standing in to Falmouth
A fishing boat off Church Cove. It was a sunny and tranquil day, an anomaly in West Cornwall.
Lizard lighthouse with Montbretia (Crocosmia crocosmiiflora) wild flowers. When the fog horn was decommissioned in 1998, replaced with an automatic electronic fog signal, it was the last compressed-air fog signal in use in the UK. The four panel rotating optic, visible for up to 50 miles, is still used to this day.
Vellan Drang, Lizard Point. These rocks mark the southern-most point in England aside from the Isles of Skilly. The building to the right of course sells coffee, cakes, and tourist tat.

And finally one photo from my frequent coastal walks right out of Penzance, this taken shortly after Storm Ellen came through.

St Michael’s Way, Penzance. The tide is half way out, but you couldn’t tell it from this photo.

As I write this blog I am back in Hastings after the next named storm of the season has just passed. Next week I fly to Venice, followed by a two hour drive to Trentino. I have an AirBnb in a smallfor 4 weeks in a small town in the Pale di San Martino Nature Park, an area of the southern Dolomites that I have yet to explore. The flight from Heathrow will be my first since March and should be an interesting experience. Fortunately, Italy seems to be currently doing alright after a rough time earlier in the pandemic.

The Vagabond Hiker

Lakeland Lockdown, Part 2:

The Northern Lakes

Well, this past month has revealed another side of England’s Lake District, namely, why it is so green. The clement weather of late May and much of June simply disappeared into the mist – quite literally. Faced with what seemed unending days of rain and heavy clouds, I largely abandoned my photographic endeavors. On most of the less damp days, I did manage to hike around the nearby woods and fells, though usually only with my camera phone, a poor substitute for the Panasonic Lumix in capturing the details of this amazing landscape. On the plus side, I was able to explore more deeply the local area just north of the market town of Keswick, usually without the encumbrance of an automobile or the jostling crowds present on the more popular routes. AND I did manage to hike to the summit of Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England, on my last day.

A view from Dodd Woods of Crookelty Farm (right, midground) where I was staying, with Keswick and Derwent Water in the background. Dodd Woods – more accurately described as a tree plantation – was right out my back door and provided some great local exercise hikes to the 500m summit from the valley’s elevation of 90m.
Bell Heather (Erica cinerea) and view towards Keswick from the start of the ascent of Skiddaw, my local fell.
A “view” of Skiddaw from Carl Side as the mist descends
Skiddaw (931m) vista with summit cairn. It is the third highest of the three proper English Munros – peaks over 3000 ft with a 500 ft prominence. (Sca Fell, Ill Crag, and Broad Crag, while greater than 3000 ft, do not have sufficient prominence to be considered Munros).
Keswick and Derwent Water from Lonscale Fell. On this relatively sunny day I did a loop hike from Skiddaw north to Lonscale Fell.
Hall’s Fell Ridge on Blencathra, another nearby fell, provided a bit of scrambling in parts
Summit view from Helvellyn with a cloud layer just above. At 950m, Helvellyn is the second highest English Munro, and conveniently located only a few miles south of Keswick.
Crookelty annex, a converted hay loft where I stayed for 4 weeks. The burbling of adjacent Mill Beck was cathartic and bird feeders attracted goldfinches and a great spotted woodpecker, among others. I’m not sure how much electricity the solar panels provided.
A view west from Crookelty Farm. The cows were a new addition during my stay.
Grains Gill and Stockley Bridge seen in the early morning as I began the ascent of Scafell Pike from Seathwaite in Borrowdale. Altogether it was a great loop hike with about 3200 ft elevation gain over a bit more than 4 miles ascent.
Skafell Pike and Sca Fell (left) from Ill Crag. If you look closely, you can just make out the stone summit shelter on Scafell Pike.
WWI dedication on the summit of Scafell Pike (978m), the high point in England. The mountain was donated to the nation by the local aristo after the war.
A view from near the summit of Scafell Pike on my descent route towards Borrowdale. Styhead Tarn and Derwent Water in the distance may be seen, with Great Gable the peak on the left.
Peering down an unnamed gill from near the Corridor Route on my descent of Scafell Pike.

Ironically the best weather of the month was on my climb of Scafell Pike, my last full day in Keswick. Now back in Hastings, on Monday I leave for Penzance in the far west of Cornwall. I am still waiting confirmation as to whether my autumn trips to Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, and Madagascar will go forward. Sadly, though, the Tour du Mont Blanc trek in September with my Utah friends was cancelled as for obvious reasons anyone traveling from the US must quarantine for 14 days.

Stay tuned for next month’s blog from Cornwall and where ever you may be, keep hiking.

The Vagabond Hiker

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