Walking in Europe

And…The Adolph Munkel Trail, Val de Funes, then on to the Val Gardena to walk the Secëda Ridge and surrounds. Spectacular!

Day before yesterday (Sept 9) we had one more day in Val de Funes (St Magdalena), so we hiked the Adolph Munkel trail which took us from the same trail head parking lot as Tullen Peak but in the opposite direction and followed a path through mainly forests along the foot of the Geislergruppe of peaks. It was a shorter day (10kms) and a little less exciting than the previous day, but lovely to be out on the trail. We had picnic lunch in a public area near the famous Geisler Alm Rifugio which was packed with hikers. The weather had turned so we had overcast skies and a bit of rain in the afternoon. Nice to be indoors in the evening instead of the tent!

Yesterday was a deluge and luckily a day on regional buses to travel down the mountain to Chuisa then on to another bus to St Ulrich-Ortisei where we decided to splurge again on a pension B&B. It was a downpour, the first real one of the trip (so minimal complaining). We explored the town for only a short while before finding our pension and drying out. Weather forecast was promising for today though..

And it delivered! Today was a glorious day in the Dolomites! We awoke to a cloudless daybreak and exciting plans to explore the UNESCO natural heritage site known as the Secëda Ridge.

Full disclosure: we took the gondola up – more splurging – but it was so worth it as we were able to spend the full day covering about 12 kms of the trails and viewpoints up in this magical place. Incredible rock formations, precipices, dramatic peaks, high alpine meadows. Only drawback was the high tourist traffic-people come from everywhere to take in the scenery (could be the selfie and TikTok capital of the world), but we found as we hiked further away from the photo op spots, the thinner the crowds. It was just such a beautiful day that the crowds didn’t matter. How lucky were we to have such a sunny day at the perfect time! 14 kms today.