Tuesday 25 November 2014

Stage 4 - Ortler 29 June - 3 July

The Ortler from the Payer Hut
From the vineyards of Bolzano, the route takes a gentle wooded ridge on large trails to Lana near Merano.  After this gentle interlude, it ascends 2000m to a long high ridge, culminating in the Hasenhorl, before descending all the way to the next valley.  After following the line of the valley it rises to a group of snowy covered mountains crowned by the lofty Vertainspitze,before descending once again to the valley at Solden.  The normal route on the 3905m Ortler follows, with a long up and down route parallel to the great Northen glaciers of the Ortler range, ending at Valdimentro near Bormio.

169km, 11,000m ascent, trails, mountaineering

Saturday 15 November 2014

Forerunners

I've just re-read Martin Conway's classic account of an end to end crossing of the Alps more than 100 years ago.  This one of my inspirations and I've added a page to this blog about Conway and my own journey.  There's some classic lines in the book and you can read a copy free online.

See my new page The Inspiration.

Sunday 9 November 2014

A definite plan

I reluctantly concluded that I needed to plan in quite some detail.  I've redrafted the route to stick to a high level course throughout, so abandoned just following Alte Via 1 and the GR5 and opted for my own route that keeps to the mountains as much as possible whilst taking in more summits.  This lengthens the whole thing a bit and definitely makes it moire demanding, but it keeps the character of the route fairly consistent. 

One thing is for sure, it won't go to plan!  On bad weather days I'll have to change it, but it gives a reasonable idea of where I'll be and when. 

The Schedule

The red sections indicate where I think there is a high likelihood of not completing and having to shorten the day/abandon peaks.  Yellow translates to a medium chance of having to change plans and green means I'm fairly confident of being able to press on regardless of weather and how I'm feeling.

Stage 3 - Dolomites 21 - 28 June

This section is one of the most spectacular of the whole trip, piecing together some of the best and most testing via ferrata in the Dolomites.  It will rely on some decent weather and not too much snow.  The almost constant exposure and dizzying heights will make for an amazing week if it all comes together.


Prospective summits include Sextner Rotwand, Paternkofel, Cadini, Punta Sorapis, Tofane di Dentro, Tofane di Mezzo, Tofane di Rozes, Punta Fanis Sud, Piz Boe, Plattkofel, Kesselkogel, Rosengarten

 206 km 15,000m ascent, a lot of via ferrata, trails,