Dusk? Dawn? Who knows. It’s like having god shining a spotlight at you when the sun breaks through.
The last morning I wake thoroughly rested after the first good night’s sleep I’ve had here. After three days of sweating and no showers I smell decidedly musky, but I’ve had the room to myself, so the only one having to put up with the olfactory challenge is me.
Yesterday’s infernal rain has stopped, even though the clouds are still lurking only a couple of valleys away, like menacing thugs waiting to pounce. I set out down the sloping rockslide, where path and burbling brook form a two-dimensional double helix, crossing again and again, with me skipping as best I can to avoid starting the day with a foot bath.
Soon, however, I’m down below the tree line, and in for a different treat, as now I’m forest bathing in the truest sense. If there is anything more glorious than the turpentine-filled air of a mountain forest fresh after rain, I don’t know what it is. I breathe deeply, and marvel at this perfect moment, languidly strolling along the escarpment, not another soul around, just me, the birdsong, a couple of marmots, and the gentle tinkle of distant cow bells.
Vaya con dios, as the Spanish would have it.
I leave that valley and enter another, where the road leads down into darker, older spruce woods. I come upon a sulphur spring, which turns out not to be more than a spout in the forest, from which a steady little rivulet flows, much like a hundred other places I’ve passed. This one has a sign saying how healthy its water is, however, so I fill one of my bottles with it. Sulphuric water may have many great characteristics, but every time I put the bottle to my lips it’s as if someone farts in my mouth, so after a couple of sips I return its contents to the ground from whence it came.
The road takes me to the valley floor, where frolicking holiday makers make me yearn for a quick getaway. According to my itinerary I’m to cross this valley and go down a funicular on the other side, which would take me to Ortisei and the end of my hike. I don’t want it to to be over just yet, however, and I’m also conscious of the fact that I “cheated” yesterday, so elect instead to go over and around one last mountain to the forest-clad east.
By now the clouds are back with their payload, but unlike yesterday’s crazy display – like an alpha chimp asserting its dominance – this light drizzle is more akin to the gentle grooming of a wizened old female (Why, yes, I have been reading one of Jane Goodall’s books on the great apes on this trip. However did you know?!), and if anything it reminds me of treasured childhood holidays in the Austrian alps, which – to the best of my recollection – were cloaked in perpetual, misty rain.
Anyway. Up the mountain and into more spruce forest I go, utterly alone once more. It strikes me that these must be the haunts of the many deer I’ve seen mounted on walls all over the place. My woodsman skills are obviously on point, because only a couple of hundred metres later I see telltale hoof prints in the mud, and a minute later – my tracking being vastly better than I thought! – I spot a doe not twenty metres away from me, still as only a deer can be. She isn’t as intrepid as my marmot friend, however, so as I fiddle to get my phone out to take a picture she vanishes, silent as a ghost.
…or sit down beneath a crucified dude.
News of my prowess with peanut butter has clearly not reached this part of the forest, because the only other critters I see are large, dark squirrels that hightail it out of there as I approach. Their loss.
And so I come to the end of my trail. I round the mountain, and there, nestled in the garden valley, is Ortisei, from whence I set out four days ago. My hike is completed. Soon I’m whisked off to Bolzano by bus, where the Ötzi museum awaits (its 5,000-year old star rather underwhelming in the (shrunken, brownish) flesh), followed by a hot shower (oh, how I shower!) and a clean change of clothes, freshly bought.
In total I’ve hiked well over 80 kilometres in four days, most of it – seemingly – up- or downhill. The trail isn’t for anyone, but if you don’t suffer from a fear of heights, lightning, or falling horribly to your death I would really recommend it – the Dolomites are a thing of outstanding beauty, and I have truly walked with gods during my days here.