I hike from the Hotel Fontana in Rimella to the Bivacco Pian del Lago. I hiked 9.5 miles today, gaining 5000 feet. I am wearing out. It is getting sequentially harder and harder to continue with this kind of elevation gain. I stop for the night at this Club Alpino Italiano hut, which has some basic bunks and a stove which I don’t touch.
View from the Bivacco.
I awake in the night, about 1:30 am. It is silent, except I can hear two mice squeaking or fighting somewhere above my head. I knew there must be mice in this cabin. I fall back asleep until almost 8 am and get up to make tea. It is overcast, which will be nice, I think, to keep it cooler.
I start to pick my way along the ridge again with the abysmal trail. I finally arrive at the Alpe del Lago unmanned CAI hut, which is really quite nice inside. I notice there is s lightbulb mounted and try to flip the switch-nothing happens. Then I follow the wires from the lightbulb to an empty metal box in the corner, where someone has left a helpful note in cursive English-“there is no electricity because the battery is missing.”
I continue down the trail, which drops into a forest, then opens out at Alpe Camino-which is swarming, I am delighted to find, with friendly goats. They are bleating to each other, and some are standing on the roof of the barn-and I laugh in delight and call to them, offering my hand-without fail they come up to sniff my hand, to see if I have a snack-but I’m not sure what snacks are appropriate for goats. These goats look like they are accustomed to handouts.
I drop down into the heat of the valley, pouring sweat. It is sunny and hot. I walk into Molina di Calasca around 4 pm and slowly start walking up the hill into the upper village.
I need to stay here tonight, to charge all of my electronics-I have the new charger from the kind proprietor from Hotel Fontana, but she gave it to me in the morning, and everything is out of battery. I look around for the one inn in town, finally calling to a woman sitting with her husband in their garden, reading-“Scuzi! ….la locanda? (The inn?)”.
Her husband gets up from his seat and points me back down to where I came from, on the main road. Oops. I walk back down, and enter the inn. It is silent and empty, and I stand awkwardly in the bar for a few minutes. It is 4:30 pm. I stick my head out to the patio, which is a beautiful dining area under a massive sweeping blooming wisteria. Used coffee cups sit on one table, and the other table has remnants of what looks like lunch-plates and beer glasses.
A woman about my age or slightly older comes out from inside. She has tired eyes and does not smile. “Si?”
“Posso avere una camera para la Notte?(could I have a room for the night?)”
“Si.” She says solemnly, then leaves for a few minutes, comes back, and motions me upstairs. “Prego.”
She leads me to a small room with a twin sized bed with old bedding that has been washed many times. I feel a bit like I am being “put in” for the night.
“Could I maybe get some lunch, like a pizza?” I ask in Italian.
“No, I don’t cook until 7 pm. Dinner is at 7”,
she replies. This is not out of the ordinary; many Italian restaurants and inns have fixed mealtimes like this.
“Well, is there anything I could have to eat before that?”
She shrugs. “I mean, I could make you a sandwich or something.”
The contrast in between this and Hotel Fontana is deafening to me. It feels as if the life has been sucked out of this establishment-as if, thirty years ago, children ran up and down these stairs, and happy families and travelers came and went, chatting in the halls, but that time is gone, and sad memories seem to hang in the air, suspended in the afternoon sunbeams coming in through the windows.
I decide to just wait until dinner. I wash absolutely all of my clothes in the sink, using the little bottle of shampoo provided and 2 hotel bars of soap. The water comes out dark brown. I hang my clothesline across my room and put my clothes on it.
I come back down the large staircase for dinner at 7. An old woman with white hair and precisely the same sad eyes is in the bar. She slowly stands and gestures for me to follow her to the dining room. I am the only guest eating dinner, but there are six or seven other tables in the room, silently sitting, set, waiting. This woman is clearly the other woman’s mother.
I wonder what happened to fill this place with sadness.
I had checked the internet reviews of this place out of curiosity before dinner. One kind German GTA hiker woman had left a positive review last year. The rest of the reviews were Italians who had eaten at the restaurant. Almost to a T they said the pizza was good, but that the food was very overpriced, and that the proprietors didn’t seem to care about service at all.
I think about this establishment in contrast to the buzzing, thrumming life that filled Pierre Luigi’s tiny inn, in Didiero, which he also ran with his daughter. I think of the local old men sitting around, gossiping, smoking cigars and drinking aperitifs, good-naturedly teasing us foreigners. Didiero is tiny, and Pierre Luigi’s establishment was easily one-quarter the size of this place-but somehow he, and his establishment, were larger than life-the cozy inn thrummed with life and energy, and you authentically had the feeling he loved what he did and he felt that he was providing a community service, which he 1000% was. I remember him enthusiastically writing his Instagram handle on a napkin for me-“please follow me on Instagram!” This man was not a day younger than 70, but he cared about the vibrancy of his business, and he understood that social media presence was important in this day and age. It came across as endearing.
I won’t leave a negative review on the internet about Locanda Taglio (any more than these musings on my public blog). It feels clear to me that this inn wasn’t always like this-that something happened, or shifted, to make it the way it is today. This mother and daughter don’t seem to mean to create this sad space. It reminds me of what happens when labor nurses burn out. You can take any life event-hosting international travelers, walking across Italy, or having a baby-and completely fail to tap into the magic, excitement, and life electricity that are available to those events. It is sad when this happens, but I truly believe that no one means to act this way-to provide checked-out hospitality or checked-out labor nursing. It can feel almost violent to the recipient-as if this apathy is intentional, a rebuke on your value-but really It’s just a thing that can happen to people, a life pitfall. It has infinitely more to do with the state of the caretaker’s heart than those she is caring for.
I leave Locanda Taglio in the morning and take the bus to Domodossola. This is a charming little Italian city, with a historic central piazza-it reminds me a bit of the central plaza in Pamplona where Cafe Iberia sits. I think, it would have been infinitely better to come to Domodossola last night on the evening bus, stay here, and return in the morning- but I didn’t have that foresight about Locanda Taglia being subpar.
A notable all-Vegan restaurant in Domodossola.
The bus that goes to Antonapiana doesn’t leave for a few hours, so I explore a little bit, buying some pasta and pesto and cheese and bread at a little market. I plunk along in rudimentary Italian, and the shopkeeper kindly chats with me. It really has been nothing short of charming, throughout this trip, the way that people will continue to make conversation with you in Italian no matter how little you speak. I don’t think it would take long to really learn Italian if I came here with a concerted effort to do so.
I am walking back towards the bus station down a narrow old sidewalk, and I half notice a group of maybe fifteen people walking the other direction. A woman passing me says, in American English-
“The things people do for love …”
I flip around and stare at her retreating back.
It is surprising, even jarring, to be able to understand a conversation around me-I remember when I returned from Europe the first time, being poignantly aware of every conversation around me in a crowded restaurant in a way I couldn’t tune out. This is the first American I have encountered in Italy. Her voice to me feels prophetic.
I make my bus and head over to Antonapiana, back in the mountains-I took buses around one 3000 foot ridge that didn’t look particularly interesting to save a little time-stopping early to charge my electronics yesterday ate some time. I have a flight to catch out of Zurich on the 21st so need to get myself up to Switzerland by the 20th.
I look at a bank digital thermometer when the bus pulls into Antonapiana-35 degrees. I look that up in Fairenheit-uugghh. The sun is blistering-I see it glittering on the rocks of the high pass where I am heading. I sit at a little restaurant and have a sandwich and seltzer water-acqua frizzante-which I am completely addicted to here. Then I slowly start up the hill. I pass a German hiker with my same backpack going the other way and chat with him for a few minutes. I finally drag myself up to the village of Cheggio and stop at the Club Alpino Italiano refuge for another acqua frizzante-might as well drown my sorrows in acqua frizzante, there are more problematic addictions in the world- the proprietor is very kind and comes and sits with me while I drink my fizzy water, trying to have a conversation with me in Italian about my hike-but my brain is hot and tired, and my Italian struggles as a result.
I leave and walk by Lago di Cheggio, which is dazzlingly beautiful in the late afternoon light-huge peaks soaring up from a huge lake which is perfectly aquamarine.
I don’t feel inspired though-I am tired, and hot, and I don’t want to hike, and I don’t want to quit just a little more than those other feelings, so I plug in the audiobook of John Bogle’s calm commonsense voice talking about investments, and sweat up the hill.
I finally give up 1000 feet below the pass, at 6600 feet elevation. I set my tent up on a windy hill overlooking an awesome glacial cirque.
I hiked 5.1 miles today, with 3600 feet gain.
It is not a good night. The wind picks up, buffeting my little tent, slapping me in the head and the feet, preventing me from sleeping. My head aches. I am dehydrated.
I look at my Gaia map and wryly note that despite the daytime temperature being oppressively hot, I have also managed to choose the windiest spot to camp for probably a mile-on a flat spot on a spine coming down off a ridge at a corner. The wind is just ripping around me, accelerated by the natural contours of the mountain. I know better than this, but camping spots were limited, and in yesterday’s baking dense heat, wind was the absolute last thing on my mind.
I start hiking late in the morning, around 10. As I climb higher, I look down and mirthlessly note a perfectly flat pitch of green grass, protected by the ridge, about 200 vertical feet above the awful campsite I had selected. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
I climb higher up the steep pass. It gets hotter. I feel profoundly unmotivated. I stop to make lunch, pasta and pesto from the shop in Domodossola. I take a little nap in the grass. When I wake, dozens of little butterflies are flying around me-and the sun is shining, and the mountains are glittering across from me. I feel as if the Alps are spinning around me and once again I feel my prescient awareness in this place. Many people will never see this, and yet, as evidenced by the hundreds of ruined stone huts I have passed, people lived from cradle to grave in this place for hundreds of years.
Anyways, I start hiking again, cresting Passo delle Preia, and I decide to walk around the second pass, Passo di Campo, which proves to be comically and unnecessarily challenging. There are a few cairns to mark the low route around the pass initially, but these fade away, and it becomes an unmarked bushwhack steep side hill traverse-my “favorite”. As I am unnecessarily sweating along, I am reminded of the Diamond Range in Nevada last year, which was basically this for 27 miles (and the occasional wild horse trail.).
I make it to Rifugio Alpe il Laghetto in the early evening.
I walk into the refuge. A young adolescent boy, wearing a visor and a Club Alpino Italiano button-down shirt, hails me in English- “Hello! Did you want to stay here tonight?”
“Yes, if there is room…”
“Pre notado (reservation)?” He asks me in Italian.
I shake my head. “No, no reservation, but it’s not that big of a deal, I have a t…”. I try to explain.
The boy makes a “sorry, you’re out of luck, this is an official business” face.
An old man, white hair, approaches, holding up his hand. “Wait. Let’s just see”, he says in Italian.
….La cena?” I ask the old man.
His face splits into a wide grin. “But dinner, always!” He declares in Italian.
“How old are you?” I ask the boy.
“Thirteen”, he declares, importantly, in English.
I am already utterly delighted by this place.
At dinner I am seated with an Italian couple. I make conversation with them, after a little while. Marina speaks a little English, and Marco speaks Spanish. Together we piece together the three languages. Marco would like to walk the Camino de Santiago someday, and we talk about this. They tell me the Dolomites are the most beautiful mountains in Italy.
It is moments like this where I feel so frustrated at language barriers, but also presciently aware of my own vulnerability and the emotional availability of the people eating dinner next to me. We are all working pretty hard to have a basic conversation, and yet everyone is motivated. It is a different energy than every-day life, where it feels like an imposition to make conversation with someone on the bus, in my own country, in my own language.
They do find a bunk for me, and I go to sleep early. I sleep deeply for nine hours.
I get going the next morning and go to pay for the night. “Ah si, Susana…” says the proprietor.
“Susana!!! Susaaaana!!!” The other proprietor starts loudly singing the old Spanish-language song with my name as he washes dishes in the kitchen. He had called me “Susy” teasingly all last night with every interaction.
I hike out. It is cloudy and cool. I climb up
and over the Passo di Orriachia Nord directly above the rifugio. This pass is the last crest which is the border between Italy and Switzerland.
I look back at Italy, and surprisingly have some feelings of sadness at leaving. “It’s okay, you can go back any time,” I tell myself, as I crest the pass.
Switzerland spreads out in front of me. The mountains are huge and high. This feels like a different world, all of a sudden-I can’t really understand why, but I feel the difference instantly.
In ten minutes I come upon four backpackers-without batting an eye they immediately start talking to me in what sounds like German. Apparently nothing about my appearance tips them off that “I’m not from around here.” I smile politely/confusedly at the first three, and at the fourth hiker, I say in English, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand German.”
He seems surprised, then hastens to explain, “In this part of Switzerland we speak German, but it is a special dialect.”
It happens six or seven more times. Suddenly, Swiss German is all around me-and I feel culture shocked in a way that surprises me. I knew how to respond to the six or seven things people say to me in Italian along the trail-suddenly, everything is different.
I reach the lake. A couple in their late 70s on the opposite shore is skinny dipping, then leisurely make a picnic in the sunshine on the shore. I also make lunch; the last of the pasta and pesto from the market in Domodossola.
I make my way down to the road, and walk into Schwizbergen, the end of my GTA walk. I’ll take a bus from Gondo, 2 miles away, tomorrow, and into Zermatt, and ultimately to Zurich. As I leave, I stare out of the bus at the huge glaciated peaks surrounding the mountain roads like a snow globe. My interest has only just been aroused-I will be back to the Alps, as soon as I can. My legs are now strong and tanned deep brown-but I am tired. It’s time to rest.
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