Photo: Amazing panorama near R. Biella

Tuesday Sep 1 After a wonderful stay in Cortina at a nice hotel with a fabulous breakfast, Monttrekking picked 8 of us up and took us to the trailhead at Lago di Braies. There is a huge hotel there and many people! A walk along the small lake got us to Trail #1 and our big climb. Today’s ascent was 2,880 feet and a 7-mile (10km) hike. I was very slow on the steep climb. We went over rocky terrain, some tree-lined trail, and one short rock scramble with chains. Every now and then we’d hit a plateau for some respite. We did see an Ibex – a mountain goat with large, long horns – high on the mountain. This proved to be our only wildlife siting. Finally, we could see Rifugio Biella at the bottom of a short downhill. It’s one of the older rifugios. We had lunch here before continuing on to R. Sennes – our destination for the day. What a lovely walk there – milder terrain over a plateau-like area with stunning panoramic views of the dramatic mountains. R. Sennes, our accommodation for the night, is a large lodge and the room was lovely. The food was excellent – quite pleasantly surprised by the “luxury.” We met two brothers (Darryl and Richard) at dinner and a German couple, who we would see now and again as we continued the trek. Great day.