Lago di Garda
After my stay at Cris's place in Oberstdorf, (the little bit of Germany with sticks out into the alps surrounded entirely by Austria) we loaded up Frauke's wee car to it's absolute max and departed south - headed for Lago di Garda for a 10 day bike/climbing adventure.
We drove past the church in the lake on the way to Gardersee
We were staying in a campground in Tobleno at the Northern end of the lake. The lake is over 60 km long, the southern end is very flat and hot, while the northern end tucks into the foothills of the Dolomites, it is surrounded by steep peaks around 2000 m high which plunge into the lake.
The campground was totally filled with German holiday makers enjoying Italy's warm weather. Many people flock to Lago di Garda for its sailing - the lake gets regular and predictable winds. The first thing that greeted us in the campground reception was a miniature of the NZ Americas cup boat Black Magic proudly displayed on the wall.
One of the first things that struck me in total contrast to the peace and quiet I have become accustomed to in Norway was the amount of people and the general buzz! We nearly got run over by a speeding motorcycle on the street, cues of traffic honked and pedestrians veered across the street clutching dripping ice-creams. A totally different world - but great fun.
Pasta pasta pasta! Emily heaven in Riva del Garda
The lake by night - this is two minutes walk from our campsite
The lake - and the sun bathers
We spent the first few days doing some mountain biking, lots of swimming and ice cream eating. I found the heat pretty hard to handle - it was often above 35 and riding up big hills in that heat was hard work. Fortunately there were heaps of springs, as well as the odd river and lake that you could put your head under or plunge into - delicious.
Out on the bikes in the hot sun
Some ruins on the way up the hill
We headed towards that spot on the map only to find a barred path - until I spotted 'Aqua' spray painted in blue to a rock above and raced up to the cliff to find a strange tank with a lever. Cris came up after me and was also scratching his head in dismay...until it dawned on us that by lifting the lever water poured out of a tap! We were so excited by our discovery we danced for joy and soaked ourselves in the cool water.
After that we were ready for the via ferrata - which turned out to be a straight forward but rather terrifyingly exposed ascent of ladders. Hundreds of meters of rusty ladders, some almost overhanging, and below our feet we could see down to the tiny boats sailing on the lake.
Half way up the ladders
Frauke on the rock
Frauke on the rock
Nice views from Cima SAT
Phew, now I need a lift home! Cris collapses hopefully on the helicopter pad at the top
It was lots of fun, but we were quite happy when we reached the top and were able to take off our harnesses and descend lots of switchbacks on an easy walking track back down to the lake.
We spent the next few days on the bikes again, completing several of the rides listed in Frauke's guidebook. One took us over the Biotope Marocche which is a strange rocky landscape created by huge landslides thousands of years ago. The temperature remained around 35 - 40 degrees, but I seemed to be getting a bit more used to it.
Another delicious cook up after a good day out
Cris is just full of beans
Cris is just full of beans
Downhill challenges....
We really couldn't eat these ice creams fast enough - it was 42 degrees and we were hungry!
Watching the final of the world cup along with all the Dutch crowd
In Peschare (the very Southern end of the lake) waiting for Chris to arrive by train
Silly girls...
After a couple of days easier riding and swimming it was time to plan a big mission. We decided on a fairly mega bike ride climbing Mt Stivo (2058) then descending 2000 meters of rough single track. Frauke and Cris (being a little more organised than us!) set off at 7am from our campsite. We followed them at 8am, climbing rapidly up to the town of Nago.
On the bikes out of the campground. There were some nice cycle paths to follow.
Chris actually got into the fountain it was so hot! Much to the amusement of passersby. I followed his example (-:
Cool narrow streets
After that was a very steep section of sealed footpath through some forest. This turned out to be one of the most testing climbs I have ever done - we were swarmed and attacked by killer flies with demon fangs (otherwise known as horseflies). They bit us all over and the only way to escape was ride like crazy....not surprisingly we did that part of the climb in record time, only stopping at the very end of the fly zone because I got a flat tire.
Steep climbing (we were out of the flies now so I was smiling again)
It turned out Frauke and Cris had also been attacked there. After that the climb was much more pleasant but got progressively steeper and more technical. We caught up with the others and shared fly stories (very thankful that that part of the ride was over). After some food we pushed and carried our bikes up through the alpine meadows to the summit.
Some Italians were very amused and impressed to see 4 bikes arrive on the summit of Monte Stivo.
Carrying the bikes the last bit to the top
Nice downhill trails
The descent was amazing, we descended some single track then traversed the ridge before flying down more single track to a saddle point. The others all outstripped me with their downhill prowess, but I was having a great time anyway.
Tricky bits
After a couple of hours descent we were all getting pretty tired and sore - we had finally had enough rough downhill - so we rode the last bit along the road and arrived back at our campground after 12 hours out!
The next day was our second to last, so we had to make it a good one. We rode up valley to the base of a very large cliff face - the sheer rock side of Monte Casale. We planned to do the Via Ferrata Che Guevara which climbs the 1300 m face. The sun was beating down and there wasn't much shade, but we had come prepared with at least 4 litres of water each so we hoped it would be ok.
Setting off up the fixed wires, the ground was rapidly falling away
Hot midday sun and a big rockface
The first part of the climb seemed quite tricky and we wished for rock shoes instead of scuffed running shoes (I had my falling apart icebugs with spikes on!) Within the first few minutes Chris, Frauke and I all had blisters on our hands from holding onto the wire and we stopped and taped up our hands. Cris was the only one showing he had been doing some climbing - his hands were tougher than ours.
The climbing got easier and we were soon over halfway up the face. The view down to the town of Daino and out to the Lago di garda was amazing.
Into the bush
We sweated our way upwards, enjoying the easy rock climbing but trying to conserve our rapidly diminishing water supplies. After a couple of hours on the face we entered the bush on a steep track which lead us the final few hundred meters up to the summit.
Nearly up and we left the face behind
Cris and Frauke about to reach the top
It was really weird to pop out on a flat grassy lawn with people picnicking and sunbathing! We still had on all our climbing gear and we immediately felt a little out of place. After admiring the tremendous view from the summit we headed back down a rather steep descent track into the valley.
The grassy paddock on top
After a couple more hot sticky hours we made it to the bikes, then cycled down valley for a very necessary plunge into the cool river, followed by a huge ice cream in Arco. That evening we decided to eat out - and being in Italy it wasn't too hard to decide what to eat - pizza pizza pizza, mmmm!
Ice cream time
Mmmm...
Finally the time had come to part ways with Frauke and Cris - they drove back to Germany on the Sunday while Chris and I took the train to Milan and flew back to Trondheim the following day. Trondheim was gray and rainy when we landed and I had some depressing thoughts that maybe summer was over....
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