We woke up at the crack of dawn – had ourselves a nice camping breakfast, and hit the first Via Ferrata of the trip – Via Ferrata Michielli Strobe – Gina had bought a beautiful book on the Via Ferrata, (will get a link) – and due to perfect planning, the Michielli Strobel Via Ferrata happened to be located right across the way from our campsite – the mountain of wall facing us.
We hiked up a pretty steep rocky ground, up and away from the road, through the trees until we eventually reached the plaque that marked the beginning of the route. We kitted up in our beautiful Ferrata kit, and headed towards the first obstacle, which, for me, was the very first ladder. I very quickly felt uneasy, and disappointingly, completely froze and had to turn back – something to this day I feel terrible about – as it wasn’t a great start to our Via Ferrata hiking trip.
We back tracked, back down the same steep slope we worked so hard on going up, and seeing all the people heading up towards the starting point – which made me feel worse.
Gina at the start of Via Ferrata Michielli Strobel
Italian Dolomites
We arrived back at the campsite, and decided to head up the next valley over – to not waste a good day – and hike up Mount Lagazuoi at the top of Falzarego Pass. The scenery was fantastic, and once we parked Claude at the bottom of the mountain, and checked out the tourist shop at the bottom, we headed up the mountain – but yet again, I had to back out as I was still feeling the nerves of my earlier attempt – Gina went ahead, as she’s awesome – and reached the top of Mount Lagazuoi without any trouble. She had a great time up at the top, taking in all the views, and shooting amazing panoramas of the view across all the valley. Then, she took the Lagazuoi cable car right back down.
View from Mount Lagazuoi
View from Mount Lagazuoi
We drove steadily back down the pass, and stopped off at Cortina – where we grabbed a pizza, and headed back to Stinky (our aptly named tent), where the moon was just rising behind the first mountain of our Ferrata trip.
Gina’s panorama from Mount Lagazuoi
Mount
Pizza time!
Also, on this night – my beloved camera, the camera I learned photography with, the Canon EOS 400D died.