It’s Day 0 of my Alta Via 1 hike where I’m not even on the trail yet, but the adventure has started with the discovery that I wrongly booked a hotel 300 kilometers away from Lago di Braies. I only realized this when I was about to board my bus to Cortina d’Ampezzo. This mistake would have sent me into a tailspin years ago, but I guess growing older also comes with the maturity of learning to roll with these things. Little did I know this wouldn’t even be the biggest surprise of the day.
Cortina d’Ampezzo is a charming ski town nestled in the Dolomites. I had intended to spend time in a café, but instead found myself on an impromptu quest to replace my lost slippers - a surprisingly challenging task despite the abundance of outdoor stores in the small town. Once that was sorted, I took some time to make a small sketch of the town before catching the next bus towards Dobiacco. Watching the lakes go by and seeing the mountains get closer, it hit me that I’d be up there soon, way different from any hiking I’ve done before—definitely the furthest I could get from the sandy trails of the Fisherman’s Trail, or the provincial trail of Camino Portuguese.
The hastily booked replacement hotel turned out to be practical, if modest. Located about 2 kilometers from the lake, it’s not exactly walking distance, especially considering the hills and the cold. However, the bus stop right outside runs to Lago di Braies every 15 minutes, and the hotel provides guests with a complimentary transport card.
After taking some downtime I went to check out the Lago di Braies itself, because I knew the next day I would be itching to start my day early and wouldn’t have time to appreciate its beauty. Even under the cloudy grey skies, the lake still maintained its blue hue. There were quite a lot of people taking pictures around the lake and I managed to find a spot on an empty bench where I could arrange my painting kit and start sketching.
As often happens, quite a few people walked past and noticed my sketch. Some took a video of me sketching, but one person talked to me and also sat on the empty spot next to me, mentioning that this has been on her bucket list since forever, and she’s very glad that she’s here. “How long are you staying here for?” she asked. This was the first small talk of the trip, which turned out to be very important. I answered that I’ll be hiking the Alta Via 1 trail, so I’ll be in the Dolomites for the next week or so, and she squealed in excitement: “oh my God! Me too! I haven’t met anyone who’s doing it on their own!”
I knew I’d eventually find and befriend people on the trail, like I’ve always done, but i never thought it would have happened this fast. Her name is Brynn and she currently lives in Seattle; she’s doing her last leg of her Europe trip, and when she discovered she had no plans for the last week of her trip, she thought about doing a hike. It was quite fascinating how a trip that I had planned for an entire year was something she arranged quite last-minute, but she made it work anyway. She even managed to find a good last-minute deal at a fancy hotel right by the lakeside that would normally be pretty expensive, and make no mistake, this is also an important detail to the story. Being last-minute also has its perks!
The only catch was, she said, that she was planning to camp the whole way, but the weather kept her worried. At first, I wasn’t really sure: it was piercing cold and the wind didn’t make it better, sure there was a lack of sun, and it seemed it was snowing for a bit on the mountains. But I guess I had some subconscious optimism in me, because somehow I had the conviction that tomorrow is a new day and it will be great and sunny and cloudless like all of the days where I hiked the Fisherman’s Trail. Right?
“Did you see the snow up there?” she said, pointing at one of the mountains I was sketching. While I had noticed it—how could I not while drawing it?—I hadn’t fully grasped its implications until she said, “it will be snowing tomorrow.”
This has a lot of implications. To her, specifically, she was wondering if she would even be able to camp at all with this weather. I wasn’t planning on camping because I didn’t want to carry all the tents, so I had pre-booked all my huts a year in advance, because apparently more and more people are walking the Alta Via 1 route these days and beds are scarce. You can of course show up without reservation and try your luck, but I’m not a fan of gambling especially after a long day of hiking, which is why I was quite diligent in pre-booking everything so early.
To both of us, well, the fact that it’s snowing up there means that regardless whether it snows tomorrow or not, the trail will be snowy and icy and challenging to pass, and both of us were not prepared to hike in winter weather. I don’t think anyone is prepared; it was mid September which was still hiking season in the Dolomites, and typically people would hike in shirts and even shorts, while keeping their down jacket only for use during the night when it gets chilly. But right now I’m wearing my down jacket and my hands are freezing and it’s probably even going to be worse up there in the mountains. And the snow! I looked down at the same hiking shoes I’ve always worn—a pair of trail runners that I probably should have replaced at this point—and they were definitely not made for walking on snow.
Brynn had the genius idea to talk to the receptionist of her hotel; she planned to ask him if the receptionist could talk to one of the huts and check with them how the trail condition is like. One of the things that I learned, especially when unfavorable weather is in play, is that it’s always good to get as much real time information as possible. We exchanged numbers so she could text me later whenever she heard any information. Once it got too chilly and I was finished with my sketch, we went our separate ways to get dinner.
Back in my hotel room, I was freezing, and I started overthinking the whole thing. I even had to get my thermal sleeping bag out because the blanket was not enough to fight the cold. I couldn’t see anything from my window because it was already dark, but from the rustling sounds and sounds of the wind, I could tell that the wind was going crazy. Before I went to sleep, Brynn sent me a voice message, saying that the receptionist had gotten some information from Rifugio Sines—one of the first huts of Alta Via 1. “One group showed up with spikes on and they said it was fine but still pretty slick,” she said. “The second group showed up and they didn’t have spikes and one of the guys had fallen and hurt his arms really badly.”
The hotel she was staying in, thankfully, had some spikes in stock and she was able to get a pair for 15 euros. If I need them, she said, she can reserve them for me. I said I would love to because I don’t think my humble hotel has a pair of spikes in stock (and even if they do, I couldn’t find anyone at the receptionist that night). The plan was for me to just fetch the spikes at the hotel because she was planning to leave earlier than I did, since she had a big day ahead—she was planning to finish the trail in 7 days because she had to catch a flight home, compared to my 11 days. I told her thank you and I really appreciate it—I wouldn’t have thought about getting spikes if I hadn’t meet her. “No worries,” she said. “Fate is a funny thing!”
Indeed, she was right. It’s crazy to think about how my trip would have looked so different—or probably wouldn’t have happened at all—if I wasn’t sitting on that bench, sketching, at the same time as when she was around.