The morning arrived exactly as I’d feared: gray and brooding, with clouds that seemed determined to stay. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, my mind racing with thoughts about the weather, so when Brynn’s text lit up my phone asking if I wanted to hike together for safety, it felt like a godsend.
I’m usually a solitary hiker—there’s something about the rhythm of your own footsteps that becomes meditative—but today, my gut was screaming that going solo would be foolish. The Dolomites in this weather, I was soon to learn, weren’t some casual day hike, and going together with someone else at least for the first day of the hike would be the wisest choice.
But no turning back now. I was already in Lago di Braies, just 3 kilometers from the trailhead. After forcing down some continental breakfast, I headed to the bus stop early then took to bus to meet Brynn at her hotel. The hotel manager who’d been coordinating with Rifugio Sines greeted us, clutching the spikes he’d held for me. As we repacked our bags in the lobby, he told us that he wouldn’t let us go without the spikes. “And thank goodness you found each other.”
We retraced our steps to Lago di Braies—the same lake where we’d first met—but this time veered right toward the ascending trail, a gruelling 800-meter climb. My legs, facing their first serious challenge of the year, were struggling under my pack’s weight. Brynn, who is much more seasoned from her Seattle hikes, moved more smoothly, but it didn’t stop her from encouraging me and telling me that I’m doing a great job. We would stop often to take photos and marvel at how Lago di Braies seemed to shrink behind us.
Our first real test was a narrow, ice-slicked path with a sheer drop beside it. After a very slow and careful crossing, we decided that it was a good time to strap on our spikes. It proved to be the right call–the trail only grew more treacherous, sometimes even disappearing at times beneath deep snow, making it difficult for us to even tell where is the trail actually going. We watched other hikers turn back, those without spikes making the wise choice I might have made if I found myself in a similar situation. It wasn’t lost on me that if I hadn’t met Brynn and if she didn’t think about getting the spikes, my hiking trip would have ended today.
The trail felt eerily empty except for a Canadian father-daughter duo ahead of us who seemed to know the way. We followed their tracks up to Forcella Sora Forno, where I pretty much collapsed against a shrine, staring down at Rifugio Biella below. The refuge looked close, yet there was still a long descent ahead of us. We met three Australians planning to push on to Rifugio Fanes—Brynn’s next stop on her way to Venice. When it was time to descend, I chose to simply slid down the soft snowy slope, too worn out to care about doing a proper descent.
My first order of business was to regain some energy, and what better way would it be than a cup of hot chocolate? Rifugio Biella was already bustling with hikers who were coming from both directions. Brynn and I sat down together with a group of American hikers who were going from the other direction, and like the hotel manager before, one of them said they were glad that we were hiking together. While they obviously meant well, doubt started to seep into my brain; I hadn’t really seen anyone hiking solo except for Brynn and I, and tomorrow I will make my journey alone. This is normally something that I never worried about in my previous hikes—in fact, I would crave hiking alone and would stay out of my way from people—but this time it feels different. Today has shaken out my confidence and suddenly the concept of solitude doesn’t seem to be appealing anymore.
Eventually Brynn and I parted ways and we hugged goodbye. I went back to Rifugio Biella, checked myself in and watched the lunchtime crowd thin out. I killed time by sketching in the dining room; it was too cold to sketch outside, so the only option was just to sketch a picture that I took of Rifugio Biella from Forcella Sora Forno. One of the hotel staff walked past and saw my sketch; she quipped that she’d keep it if I leave the sketch behind, and I thought, why not? I had time to kill and anxiety to quiet, so I made her a fresh one. Watching her proudly show it to her colleagues, I felt a small warmth return—even on edge, I was still able to make people happy, and that felt great.
I didn’t know that I wasn’t the only one feeling anxious. More people started to arrive, one of them a husband and wife who caught me sketching in the dining room. She complimented my sketch, and I finally gathered enough courage to make my first small talk of the day. We discovered that it wasn’t me who felt today was off; she and her husband also felt the same, they didn’t have spikes with them and they were also wearing running trails. Her husband is a mountain guide, so they know what they were talking about. We started talking about exit plans in case it wasn’t feasible to hike the trail all the way through, although their original plan was to stop midway anyway, but the trail conditions today had them rethinking their routes.
The rifiguio staff asked people to leave so they could arrange the tables for us; they sat me together with the husband and wife, Karena nd Juan Carlos, then another ex-military Australian who has climbed the Himalayas, and an Italian guy called Francesco. At first, we seemed like an awkward pair—the other people in the other tables were families and couples and they seemed to be having fun, and meanwhile our table was mostly talking about the difficulty of the hike today.
That night, I woke at 3 AM, compulsively checking weather forecasts. I discovered Reddit threads questioning whether it would be wise to hike Alta Via 1 in these conditions. Why hadn’t I thought to check the weather forecast and these subreddits before? I started thinking about alternative plans—maybe a warmer route from Bologna to Florence? An entire week in Venice? But the logistics of last-minute changes felt overwhelming, and eventually, exhaustion pulled me back to sleep until seven.