Wednesday 22nd August: Weather 19°C to 15°C
Chardonney to Peradze DAY 3: 14.5k walk::8.30am to 3pm: 6rs 30 mins: Ascent 1400m, Descent 300m
Accommodation: Rifugio Sogno di Berdze, location Peradz at altitude 2526 metres
Olga was a wonderful host
Heading up La Scaletta
Meadows at Creton (1900 metres)
Panorama behind Camporcher Valley
Steady climb to Rifugio Dondena
Morning tea back steps Dondena
Royal Game track a neat stony path
Lake Miserin sanctuary/rifugio
Fenetre di Camporcher shrouded in power lines
Sprinklings of wild flowers
Sprinklings of wild flowers
Looking back amid power lines
Fenetre di Camporcher 2828 metres
Gran Paradiso in far distance
A dose of dog
Lunch at the top with a view
Rifugio Peradze 300 metres below
View from our honeymoon room
Patches of snow at 2526 metres
A spectacular day in the Italian Alps on a beautiful sunny, but hazy day. Highlights were many. Firstly was climbing through the pine forest on La Scaletta, the hundreds of stone steps beside the Torrent Ayasse to the meadows at Creton at an altitude of 1900 metres above the tree line. Then reaching Rifugio Dondena, with hundreds of day walkers on their way up to the alpine Lake Miserin (2582 metres) before the final ascent to the Fenetre di Camporcher (2828 metres).
Awake at 5.30am and packed and showered ready for an early start, anticipating a long hard day with an ascent ahead of 1400 metres. Olga our host makes us bacon and eggs with bread and home made jam and coffee so strong the teaspoon almost stood upright. She has also made a nut flour chocolate cake which we wrap and take for morning tea as we’re already full.
We leave at 8.30am on a clear cool 19°C day, walking up through the village to the first sign to Rifugio Dondena, the half way pint of today’s walk. Within 5 minutes we’re at La Scaletta, climbing the hundreds of stone steps beside the Torrent Ayasse. It’s so lovely in the cool of the forrest but in an hour, we’re above the tree line in the meadows of Creton at 1900 metres. Looking back down the hazy Camporcher Valley, there’s a panorama of the mountains we have just left, spoiled somewhat by the power poles and lines coming from the nuclear power plant in Isere, France. In another hour, we reach the Rifugio Dondena, with the hoards of day walkers spreading in all directions. There’s a dirt road into Dondena enabling 4WD vehicles access. It’s 11am and ime for a cup of tea and chocolate cake sitting on the back steps of the Rifugio, watching the walkers stream past.
Heading up through the open rocky landscape towards Lake Miserin, the path follows the Kings’ Royal Game Track, a neat stone path built 160 years ago to enable King Vittorio Emanuele to go hunting with his party. It’s an hours walk up to Lake Miserin, where there’s a church-sanctuary and Rifugio, the destination of most of the day walkers who are having lunch with a beer.
It’s a steady climb through rocks and shale sprinkled with wild flowers to the Fenetre de Camporcher, the dividing pass between the Camporcher and Urtier Valleys. It’s shrouded with power lines . It’s sunny when we reach the Fenetre with spectacular views across to the snow capped Gran Paridiso Alps in the far distance, thankfully above the power lines. We look for a spot for lunch in the shade, but within five minutes, the wind gets up and the temperature drops to 10°C. Looking for shade becomes looking for a spot in the sun out of the wind. Lunch is rock hard rye bread with cheese and tomato with a hot cup of tea. We don’t stay long. It’s getting windier and colder.
Heading down the other side, Rifugio Peradze, our home for the night, is only 300 metres below us and in 30 minutes we’re inside and taken to our “Honeymoon Room”. Many of teh Italian Rifugios have a mixture of large dormitories with more than 20 people, small rooms for 4 to 6 people, and sometimes a room for 2. We were lucky to ask for and score their room for 2, with a bottle of champagne waiting for us on the table.
The Rifugio is at and altitude of 2526 metres and it’s getting colder by the minute. Roberto informs us that the hot showers will be available in 30 minutes. The entire rifugio is serviced by a noisy generator, not the high voltage power lines, even though their is a humungous power pole next to the Rifugio . Although we have a private room, the bathroom is up the corridor and is still communal. That’s OK. And at 4pm we have a super hot shower then sit back and relax by ourselves in our room looking at photos and blogging today’s events.
It's warmer downstairs in the dining room sitting in the last of the sun. The Rifugio is very quiet with only 6 people staying here though the capacity is 80. We probably could have had a whole dorm to ourselves but our private room is nice. Roberto puts the fire on about 5pm while we sit and have a cold beer waiting for dinner at 7.30. There’s not much choice about having dinner early in a rifugio but our time is filled in reading the booklet on the Tor des Geants (TDG). An amazing event.
The Tor des Geants is a 330km race beginning and finishing in Courmayeur and has been running every September for the past 8 years. It’s listed as one of the 5 hardest race events in the world and last year there were 2000 entrants but a lottery draw selected only 800. The race ascends and descends 24,000 metres. That’s 4 times up and down Mt Everest from sea level! It's so named because it passes by the 4 Giant Mountains of Mont Blanc, Grand Combian, Matterhorn and Monte Rosa.
The winning male runner finishes in a time of 75 hours, and for females it's 85 hours. Roberto, our host explains that the race passes through his Rifugio Perdaza where the competitors can stop for a meal or rest if they so choose. As there are no allocated rest or eating times, and each runner must decide how much sleep/rest/food that he/she has. Most competitors don’t sleep at all for the entire 3 days, some only taking short naps, but one who did sleep at Roberto’s rifugio, asked to be woken up after 12 minutes! Ultra trail running is big in Europe, and we often see more trail runners than hikers.
Reading up on the TDG filled in the 2 hours until dinner at 7.30. Our “honeymoon room” came with a bottle of bubbly which we had asked to be put in the fridge until dinner and Roberto obliges and brings us our very cold bottle to have with our meal. Starting with red cabbage rissotto, the large entre is all we really need with the main course yet to come. We ask for a petit meal please. But a big meal comes spilling over the edges of a very small plate. We have to leave half. Dessert is a cup of creamy liquor or panetta.
Time for bed at 8.30. Our room is cold but there’s plenty of doonas. The generator stops at 10pm and all is quiet.
Tor des Geants circuit
Tor des Geants Profile