Brenta Dolomites, September 2009 - Via delle Bocchette
The route gets a big build up – Jagged Globe describe it as “one of the finest mountain journeys in the Alps ….comparable in quality to the classic Chamonix to Zermatt Haute Route”.
It’s a high level hut to hut traverse of the fairytale mountains in the photo on ledges, ladders and cables. I hope you find the following account of my trip entertaining. Maybe you’ll give it a go...
Thursday 3 September
 Madonna di Campiglio in the rain. Out of season ski resorts without their winter dressing are grim places. But the lasses in the Tourist Office speak English, supply a weather forecast, a bus timetable and make our rifugio bookings for the first three nights.
We plan a south to north traverse leaving the hire car on the Groste lift car park just outside Madonna taking the bus down the valley to Pinzolo. This way the car will be waiting for us when we finish the route and come back down to the valley. The highwayman on the funivia car park wants €7 per day. We park in a roadside layby below the funivia, put on our hill gear and trudge up to the bus stop in the rain.
 In Pinzolo the Doss del Sabion gondola and chairlift whisks us upward through blanket mist and cold rain dumping us on a deserted wasteland. For all I can see it could be Rochdale bus station on a foggy November day but without the chance of stumbling to the relative safety of the Weatherspoons next door. Three hours and 700m of ascent to Rifugio XII Apostili. I’m wearing waterproofs and carrying 12 kg. Joy.
We arrive at the Rif some time later. On cue the rain stops. There are only a half dozen of us at the Rif so it’s peaceful and we have a room to ourselves.
Friday 4 September
It’s grey but dry. Rain forecast for later. Do we risk cabin fever or another soaking? We reason that ‘rain later’ gives every chance of going over the Sentiero Ettore Castiglioni ( Brenta 9 in the Smith and Fletcher guide) to Rifugio Agostini and returning in the dry. It’s only 5/6 hours total. It will be a loosener and prepare our heads for the more serious work to come.
 Dutifully we follow the red and white painted waymarks. At Bochetta dei Del Dente (centre of photo) we put on our via ferrata kit and peer into the gloom to make out a ladder disappearing down into the mist.
Thirty minutes, countless rungs and no sense of exposure later the ferrata is over. We continue downward mistaking a huge block for the Rifugio in the mist. At the real Rifugio Agostini we have a beer and try to look like real mountain men scornful of the less hardy souls sitting out the unfavourable weather for the day.
 We head back uphill and clip on to the cable. Out of the mist rain begins to fall. In minutes the rain is cascading off overhanging walls and streaming down the ladders. We are relieved to be off the ironwork as a crack of thunder rolls around the cirque. Back at Rif XII Apostili, the suspected houseproud nature of the guardian is confirmed when our wet gear is taken away to dry overnight in the generator room. I offer to do it myself but I am refused politely.
Saturday 5 September
I ask the guardian for my gear and he goes off to return with yesterday’s haul. We sort it quickly but I’m dismayed to find he’d put my small wet items - socks, gloves etc - in my rucksack and left them in there overnight.
The weather is superb so it’s soon forgotten and we are away to Rifugio Pedrotti via Sentirero Ideale (Brenta 7) and Sentiero Brentari (Brenta 8).
 At Bocchetta dei Camosci we look at the rising line across the shaded glacier and decide it was worth carrying the axe and crampons after all. Beyond the glacier the route continues on the diagonal line up the rock wall to Bocca d’Ambiez.
 Cables on the east side of the Bocca lead down to a sunlit glacier. I judge that the snow is less steep and will be softer in the sun so we rely on our boots. After a precarious walk along the lip of the ‘schrund I remember an old chestnut - good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement. The gap is too wide and deep for me to safely reach the ladder from the lip. A knotted rope allows a descent into the gap.
A couple of hours later and we are about to head down into the scree basin enclosed by the rock walls of Cima Tosa and on to Rifugio Pedrotti at 2491m. Two women from a Czech Republic party coming up from the scree ask if they can look at our map. We show them where we are and they ask directions to Rif Brentai. They have a choice – go in our direction and it’s a walk. In the opposite direction, two ferratas and down our first glacier of the day. It’s turned 3.00 ish and I suggest Rif Agostini or Pedrotti as closer alternatives. They do not have axes or crampons. The taller of the two dismisses Pedrotti with a shrug and a derisory sounding “always Pedrotti” and they continue in the opposite direction to us.
 It’s now late Saturday afternoon but we’d made a booking to be certain of our beds. Even so we’re on the third floor in a pokey six bunk mixed ward. I get the worst – top middle bunk. The roof slopes down towards my head with only two-foot clearance above my pillow. 120 beds, 8 toilets and its full of Italian weekenders. It’s bedlam. Somehow 3 waitresses serve the lot of us with a decent 3 course meal in reasonable time and with a smile. You get your own drinks from the bar but the thought of getting out of bed during the night makes me cautious. The clamour rises even higher until I retreat to the dorm.
Sunday 6 September
Via delle Bochette Centrali ( Brenta 5) to Rifugio Alimonta. A late start at 9.30 due to my headache and a short walk along the ledge to Bocchetta di Brenta.
Time to put on our gear. A tall woman has reached the Bocchetta from the other side and joins us. It’s the Czech from yesterday. She recognises us and wants to chat as she waits for her slower friends. They made it to Rif Brentai around 7.30 last night and now they are returning via the easier path. It’s their last day and they are going down to the valley to take a coach back home. “When will you get home? I ask. “Monday morning 6.00 am. I start work at 7.00 am”. I decide not to mention my headache.
 The climbing is easy, the situations astonishing, the weather perfect and we dawdle along taking it all in. We give way on the ferrata when meeting large groups travelling in the opposite direction. We take a long lunch hour. From Bocca dei Armi we slide down the glacier to Rifugio Alimonta 2580 m. A room for eight but there is only us. My head is still banging and I feel shot at. The showers are not working so I rest on my bed. Two hours later I wake up in a fully occupied mixed ward. The showers are now working but subject to a queue of German fellow travellers.
Monday 7 September
 Out of the hut, downhill, round a rock buttress and into a glacial bowl out of the sun. 40 minutes uphill grind on loose scree to the start of Sentiero Oliva Detassis ( Brenta 3). The ladders are cold, steep and exposed but we are going well and move up rapidly to join Via delle Bocchette Alte (Brenta 4). More ladders, more ledges some cabled, some not and more staggering situations.
Round a corner to a steep, narrow snow gully sweeping down from Cima Brenta. There are steps in the hard snow flattened by the passage of boots and a cable sagging below our feet. One at a time we clip the cable and cross very carefully. I am so impressed I don’t take photos. More ladders more ledges and lots more concentration. The ledges are covered in loose stone.
 Eventually we reach cables leading 300 m down to Bocca del Tuckett and another glacier. We try to make an elegant glissade but end up flailing our arms and falling. Crampons on again and down to Rifugio Tuckett 2272 m. Total time for the day around 7 hours.
We haven’t booked the Rif thinking numbers will be thinning out. Looking at the numbers outside It’s busy. We go in and put our request to the Guardian who frowns, appears to rub out a pencilled name and announces room 25 with a flourish.
Room 25 turns out to be a garret with at least the same number of beds. I bag a bed under the eaves which, whilst squeezed by beds either side, does not have a bunk above.
Over dinner a lone American joins in conversation with us. He’s travelling around Europe and wants to sample the mountains. He’s found he can hire a VF kit from the Rif and intends to try the same route as us in the morning. He’s 16 stones or more and not in shape but he has age on his side and got up here so he must have some idea. We make polite noises before turning in.
 By 10.00 pm lights out the garret is full to capacity. I have the best night’s sleep of the trip.
Tuesday 8 September
Lacing my boots outside when the lone American strides out of the hut. Pleasantries are exchanged and, as he goes on his way, I note he’s wearing trainers!
We head back up towards yesterday’s glacier catching him before the snow. He’s blowing a bit and accepts our advice not to go up the glacier. We point him towards protected path 315 avoiding both the glacier and the steepest part of the ferrata. He’ll soon see what he’s in for but if he’s not happy he can go back to Rif Tuckett before getting into too much difficulty.
 We plod back up the glacier to the Bocca, gear up and start up Sentiero Alfredo Benini (Brenta 1). The ferrata is followed by a plateau, a snow slope and then the inevitable ledges.
It’s hugely enjoyable in superb conditions. The ledges go on and on into the afternoon and then begin to run down to meet a wide rising limestone pavement desert. Over a low ridgeline the pavement cants over into a tilted slope. The waymarks take a diagonal line against the grain of both angles. Two miles on and the pavement runs out into the rough loose stone base of a ski piste to Rifugio Graffer 2261 m.
 It’s a 70 bed luxury skiers Rif and we share it with perhaps a dozen others. We have a room to ourselves and, joy of joys, seated WCs.
The angled pavement has hammered my knees but no matter we’ve completed the Bocchette end to end on consecutive days. Lazing outside in the last of the day’s sun, smugness, comfort and weissbeer work their magic.
We share the terrace with two guys from Blaenau Ffestiniog. The younger, thirties, smoking a roll up and an older bloke treating us to the rare aroma of pipe tobacco. It’s their first day up here and they want to try the Benini route tomorrow. The older guy tells me he’s 75 and asks me about the cost of Rifs along the Bocchette whilst Tim talks to the younger guy. Gradually it dawns on me that they are not staying overnight at the Rif – they’re doing it on a tight budget. They are sleeping rough and have their eye on the chairlift station opposite.
Wednesday 9 September
Amble down to the intermediate station of the Groste lift and take the easy way back to the valley. Tim, having done both now, says the Haute Route is just a slog in comparison.
Sentiero = path
Via Ferratas of the Italian Dolomites: Volume 2. Graham Fletcher and John Smith. Cicerone.
Bochetta = gap
Bocca = pass or saddle
John Tattersall
Littleborough
January 2009
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