Dolomites High Route 2: Plattkofel to above Arabba – motorbikes, a thunderstorm that missed us and a better spot

What a start into the day. I was up at like five o’clock because I heard rocks falling out of the wall behind us. Nothing happened, but then I was awake for quite a while and couldn’t really sleep. At some point I guess I just went back to sleep, and I only woke up again kissed by the sun that hit our tent. That was at like 7:30, and it instantly got warm in the tent. So it was just really nice to get up, because you could go outside of the tent without being cold.

We packed our stuff, went back on the trail and got to the first hut, the Friedrich-August-Hütte. I had a good coffee and a piece of cake, and then suddenly people were coming from everywhere. The Sellajoch is a very famous spot, since you can get there by car. So we made our way down to the Sellajoch and just met lots of people, which was quite disturbing after such a peaceful night. But all good, the weather was good. The sun was out, it was partly cloudy and it was always the game of putting on the jumper and taking it off again as soon as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

And then there was an unfortunate part where we had to hit the road, a curvy road, and it was full of motorbikes. It’s just the most annoying thing in my opinion. I mean, sorry to whoever I might offend, but you walk through nature and the sound of these things is just so loud and annoying. And of course all of the guys were racing, so it was super dangerous and super noisy and not really nice. We had to stay on the road for like five or six kilometers, so just a good portion.

Unfortunately the conditions did not let us climb the Piz Boè. It is 3.000 meters and a little bit and it was just fully covered in snow. So we took a detour over the pass, the Pordoi I think it’s called. And as soon as we got off the road it was actually nice. It was getting really warm and we had a good lunch break.

Curtains of rain falling over a green valley and dark mountains

Then we made our way up to the final pass. It started raining again a little, but not too bad. We filled up the water bottles and then wanted to continue on a trail called Sellaronda, because it just goes around the Sella group.

Me in a red top and pink shorts dancing on a meadow with the camera and my poles in my hands

While we were on the trail we could see a thunderstorm building up just ahead of us. And the obvious signs: tailwind, because the thunderstorm was sucking the air into the tower. So it felt like a tailwind and like it was pushing the cloud away. But the closer we got, suddenly we saw lightning and it turned around. All of the cold air from the top of the tower just fell down and pushed out to the sides, and we got a headwind. An obvious sign of a thunderstorm unloading itself.

A black sky over a meadow with small crocuses and distant mountains

Snowy peaks with a band of cloud lying in the green valley below them

So Sina and I started running to make it to the next lift. It was closed, but we thought at least some shelter. We caught the first raindrops and got faster and faster. And then luckily the cell of the thunderstorm was actually moving southwards, so it missed us and we made it to the ski lift dry.

We had a little break, fueled up a little and then had to climb another 400 meters to the next lift. Then there was the decision to either go down to the valley directly, where we had to go tomorrow anyway, and walk on the road. Or make a little detour to catch the trail again that we were supposed to come down on from the Piz Boè. We decided for that and it was a good choice. It was probably another 300 or 400 meters uphill, but through a little rock garden. Super beautiful, probably the most beautiful stretch of trail so far. But we could feel our legs from yesterday and we were pretty exhausted.

Me coming down a rocky gap between rock walls with a red and white trail marker in front

It took us a little while and then we found a nice spot. Sina pitched the tent and I went up to get some water. But it was just impossible. It was water running off a rock into a snow field, but since it had been dripping there for weeks and weeks, it had created a massive hole in the snow field, about five meters deep. There was no way of getting in, so I couldn’t get any water.

When I came back down she had pitched the tent, and when we looked at it we realized we were just at the bottom of a massive rock face. If any rock is going to fall out tonight, it’s going to be a really dangerous spot. So I climbed up a little, continued on the trail to the next plateau and found a way better spot, even with a better view. So we took the tent down, packed everything into the backpacks, went up to the next plateau, pitched our tent again and had an amazing dinner with the sunset, all of the big mountains around us glowing in the red sun.