Day five started with our backpacks ready first thing in the morning, our tent cleaned and closed for the other travellers to come and enjoy a good night sleep and us all heading to the reception/supermarket to grab a sandwich, a (disgusting) vending machine coffee and the timetable for the bus which will save us a few good kilometres and lead us to Passo Falzarego at around 2100km.
Our group voted and we decided the best choice after a hell of a previous day was to skip some of the steep ascent through the forest and take a bus up to that mentioned point.
At Falzarego we grabbed a perfect espresso and our colleagues took the cable car to Lagazuoi peak (at around 2800m) in order to work their legs a bit (more) on the descent. The two of us started slowly our ascent to Rifugio Nuvolau, our accommodation for that night.
This was my favourite day. I enjoyed every part of it and I even wanted to re-do some of the climbing on the rocks up until we reached Rifugio Averau. When I say rocky roads I mean it! All shapes in all the white – gray spectrum. At times I felt the backpack was pulling me back but I trusted my legs so I went forward. Well, maybe because going down was not an option at that point. Tremendously beautiful sights and incredible silence. Impressive peaks and paths to take you to the very top.
Rifugio Averau, at 2400m, is the perfect spot to pause, modern and full of travellers, spacious and with great food and facilities. Better than a four star hotel. We took a long time to eat, drink and, you guessed, have a strudel.
We were somehow chased by a predicted little stormy rain so we were checking the skies at all times, knowing that we still need to go up and make it to Nuvolau. The ascent is very short, around 1km, doable in 30m if you do not stop to marvel and take pictures. Given that I did not test my boots on slippery rocks, I was mindful of that ascent and the rain to come.
During this last part of the ascent you start to have a 360 view of everything surrounding you. You cannot see the Nuvolau hut yet, that 1km is pretty steep, but your ears are hurt by the quiet that deepens even more. Well, if not for the travellers. Like us.
The hut is small, the peak is incredible, there is no connection with the outside world except for a small cable pulled waggon that, as I was about to find out, would bring food and take up trash, when needed. The Refugio is functional from May to September. The family who runs it now lives there during all these months and go home for the rest of the year. But they told me they would prefer to live there 12 months out of 12, if possible. However, it is not doable due to the lack of heating or water, most of the times. There is snow at Nuvolau up until end of April, there is no water to be wasted and all the trash you produce yourself, needs to stay in your backpack until you reach a location that can easily throw it away for you. Nuvolau has no bins. Crowds of people where flocking together to take pictures and eat or drink. The host told me that at 4 pm, they will all be gone. They need to start their descent because you cannot go anywhere else from there than back. The hut only has 20 beds. We were occupying 10 of those already.
At 4 pm I was blown away – no one was there anymore. Such an incredible feeling of it-is-just-us-now! A feeling of comfort and warmth and, again, the incredible silence. It was our home. The hosts where young and nice and were having their first breaks outside, them and us.
We were told the two of us will sleep in a room of eight. Little did I know about that smallest room ever where, again, I had an excellent overnight sleep. Yes, I am that kind of person who, apparently, sleeps well in the least common spaces. The room was this sort of an attic room, the entrance door was 150cm high and potentially 60cm in width. We had Dutch people in our group so just picture this and have a laugh. They surely did! Eight beds, each stuck to the one next to it, eight power sockets (amen!) and that was about it. Nothing else. We slept with our small window open for fear they would find us all deprived of oxygen and dead the next morning. Later edit: we all survived.
I was, again, the first one to wake up at around 6 am. Took my backpack outside to search for some random clothes I can put on the so-called pyjamas I slept in. The pyjamas consisted of some random merino leggings and blouse.
I was in the only existing small bathroom and I thought about opening the small window next to the toilet. I was blown away! The view was incredible. I started laughing: you can find beauty in the most unexpected places and at most unexpected times. I rushed upstairs to grab my phone and, of course, capture the sunrise. When I got back into the toilet, I found one of the neighbours just climbed on top of the wc to take better pictures. We laughed and he invited me to come in for the photos. We both decided it is best if we get dressed and just go outside, like normal people.
I never had such a morning! I never experienced such quiet, so many clouds lowering or disappearing completely and a mist that was changing colours each second. I rushed upstairs again to wake up my partner, he had to experience this also! That morning coffee was the best I had so far.
After a nice breakfast, we started our last day consisting in only a descent of 1300m until Cortina d’Ampezzo where we were to spend our last night in Italy and then, first thing the next day head to Venice and home.
I did not want the descent to end. Even from Nuvolau you can see the Cinque Torri. The descent is fabulous and pretty easy and the Refugio Cinque Torri had the best ricotta strudel! I broke the pattern and tasted a different filling. We met a French doctor who was having a coffee that he spilled two times until reaching the table where we sat. In fact it was not an americano anymore, it was a small espresso. He asked about us, lots of questions and all in French. I dusted off my vocabulary and felt like a 14 year old at her first exam. I asked about Romanian doctors abroad and he said he works with lots of them and he enjoys it. They lack knowledge in what the new technology and equipment are concerned, but they speak French easily and are fast learners.
Cortina was waiting for us in an unbearable heat. We checked in in our hotel, took the perfect shower, stepped off of our boots and got rid of the backpack and went outside for an evening walk, a well-deserved beer, some dinner and quite a nice old cars show that took place in that day. Cortina is Italy’s Chamonix, except the latter appears to somehow be more classy and colourful.
The only fair and short conclusion there is for me? I would do the Dolomiti trail again! Same hike even. Or try new routes, sleep at new huts, eat the same strudels. I would walk the Alta Via again, see Sorapis again, break the silence and be tired and hot in the same time! It was worth it until the very end.