After 6 days of hiking the Alta Via 1, we still had 1.5 days to go, but it definitely started to feel like the trip was winding down. We had 6 days of incredible sunny weather, but it was due to shift and there was a rainstorm moving in on Day 7. This caused me and Kristine to have to re-assess how we wanted to finish the trail.

At this point, it was late September and the rifugios were starting to shut down for the season. Our biggest issue on Day 7 was related to poor planning on behalf of the third party, Mac’s Adventure, which we used to book our hike. They didn’t realize that some of the rifugios would be closing earlier than expected that season and our planned stay at Rifugio Vazzoler was cancelled. In order to save the trip, we decided to combine the distance we’d do in two days into one and continue on to Rifugio San Sebastiano, which meant we had a 21km day with over 1300m of elevation gain (and 2000m of loss). We knew it would be a big day and the incoming rain storm put a dampener on our plans.

Most of the Alta Via 1 trail is located in the alpine, hence why the trail is known as the “high route”. Because it receives so many visitors every year, the trail along exposed rock is very eroded, meaning that it becomes very slick when wet. We were concerned about potentially dangerous wet conditions while having to cover so much ground, so we opted to take another alternate route to get to the next rifugio. (note: because of the rain, I don’t have a lot of photos from the last 2 days on trail, so enjoy some more photos of Lago Coldai first).

Instead of trekking 21km through the alpine, we opted to take a 5km detour down to the town of Pecol. This meant that we had to backtrack along the switchbacks from the previous day, and then take an alternate route through a ski resort to get to town. It wasn’t raining yet, but it was very cloudy and ominous, so I was glad we’d taken the opportunity to visit Lago Coldai the previous evening. After an uneventful hike down to the village, we treated ourselves to hot drinks and a sweet treat at a cafe while waiting for a bus.

Fortunately, Rifugio San Sebastiano is located right off the road, so we had to navigate two highways in order to get there. The first road was passable by bus, which saved us 8km of road-walking. But the second road didn’t have any transit options, so we were prepared to hike the remaining 8km and hope for a hitch along the way. We figured 8km of road walking in the rain was preferable to 21km of slippery trail walking.

It turns out that we’d be saved the entire road-walk. As we were waiting for the bus, two hikers saw us and asked where we were headed. Turns out, we were all headed to the same place. They were two parents hiking the trail with their adult children. The woman had injured herself the previous day and they had come to the same conclusion as us about bypassing the trail (though their children were still hiking it). They had already paid for a taxi all the way to San Sebastiano and generously offered for us to join them! So instead of spending all day road-walking, we ended up with a pretty easy drop off to the rifugio before noon. (a few more photos of Coldai below)

It was too early for us to check in, so we decided to head out for a little walk to see a bit of what we’d missed. It’s approximately 2.5km between Rifugio San Sebastiano and Rifugio Bruto Carestiano, which was also closed for the season. We had a pretty leisurely walk along the trail to the Refugio, which took about 2 hours, but of course, it started raining right when we got to the rifugio and continued for most of the hike back to San Sebastiano. Kristine had a few last moments with the cows in the area and then we had a late lunch while we waited to get into our room.

San Sebastiano had a different vibe than the other rifugios since it was located right on the road, but it was a nice place and we at least had spacious rooms and free showers. Kristine had a nap and I headed down to the bar to journal and enjoy an aperol spritz. There was one other hiker in our room and she joined me and we had a great chat for a few hours. She was visiting from Australia on her own and doing the entire trail, so we swapped stories about our travels and our experiences in our home countries.

We had a nice last night on the trail, but a very chaotic final hike out. The trail actually continues for another 35km to Belluno, which most hikers do over 2 more nights. But our plan had always been to do a shortened version of the trail, so our itinerary had us hiking out to the town of Agordo and then taking a bus to Belluno for the night. The challenge was that hikers that go to Agordo generally hike out via either Rifugio Vazzoler or Bruto Carestiano. In retrospect, the best way out for us would have been to hike the 2.5km back to Bruto Carestiano and go from there. But Mac’s didn’t provide us with any directions for this part of the hike my GPS showed a route further down the highway that looked like the shortest option, so we did that.

This was the first of two mistakes. I thought we were in for 1km of road walking to get to the trail, but when we arrived at the trail, it looked like it had been logged in previous years and we couldn’t find the trail. It looked like there was another junction further down, so we did another 3km of road walking to the village of Casen, where my GPS showed another shortcut to Agordo. This was where we made the second mistake, which wasn’t really a mistake, but caused us a lot of anxiety due to a very creepy dude on the trail.

In order to get down to the trail, we had to cross through a farm and then down through a narrow wooded trail before popping out on an old forestry road. This road was pretty wide and fairly easy walking, but before we got to that road, we passed an Italian guy in the woods. He passed by me and didn’t say anything, but then when he got to Kristine, he tried to explain to her in broken english that he would take her to Agordo in his car and then got fairly aggressive trying to turn her around to go with him (he lied to her and said he’d already talked to me and that I was following). She called out to me through the forest and I quickly backtracked and explained to the man that we were fine. He kept insisting that we didn’t want to hike the trail and I tried to clarify if the trail wasn’t passable. He said the trail was passable but too hard for us (wow, dude). He was giving off really bad vibes, so we managed to ditch him, but we were both feeling a bit shaken once we got to the forestry road.

Neither of us wanted to backtrack, but nor did we really want to keep going. I was really nervous about the condition of the trail further on. It was all downhill, so I didn’t want to have to backtrack again later. The trail ended up being totally fine, it was wide and a gentle downhill for 90% of it. It definitely saved us time from walking the winding road to Agordo, but I think the road would have been better for our sanity. It was like we were both waiting for this guy to pop back out of the woods and abduct us. I was seriously concerned that he knew where we were headed and I was worried he might be waiting for us at the end of the trail (the joys of being a woman).

We didn’t encounter a single other person on the trail, so it appeared to not be in frequent use, but it also had a ton of signs on it advertising the direction of a trail race that had occurred at some point in the past, so it’s clearly used for something. The trail did get narrower (and creepier) towards the end, the closer we got to town, but we eventually popped out of the woods onto one of Agordo’s town roads and immediately felt 100% better. So terrain-wise, the trail wasn’t a bad idea, it wasn’t hard (especially in comparison to the rest of the Alta Via 1), and it saved us time, but it wasn’t a nice way to end an 8 day trek, to which I’d really like to tell that man, F-you for ruining our final kilometres.

We walked into town and had the most delicious cheap gas station style pizza I’ve ever had, before walking to the bus station to catch a ride to Belluno. Things got a bit hilarious at this point because we didn’t realize we’d be taking the bus at the same time as approximately 500 high school kids. When the bus finally showed up, they all rushed it and Kristine and I were left feeling very overwhelmed. We did manage to get on the bus, but it was a long and crowded ride with our backpacks. The whole thing felt surreal and we had a good laugh that after escaping a potential abduction, we were going to die in a stampede of sweaty teenagers.

And that pretty much concluded our trek on the Alta Via 1! We had a nice hotel room in Belluno and treated ourselves to more pizza for dinner. I must profusely thank Kristine for inviting me to join her on this hike because I honestly loved the experience. I’m a bit of a sucker for punishment and love roughing it on a good wilderness hike, but I could definitely get on board with the hut to hut European experience every now and then! The trail was incredibly scenic and varied and overall, the huts were phenomenal. I feel like every experience on the Alta Via is different. In total, we hiked 100km of trail, with ~80km of AV1 trail and ~60km of the traditional route. It was such a cool experience and I would definitely do it again to add on some of the original route that I missed and to tag the last section of trail to Belluno. In conclusion, it was a 5-star experience for me and I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity!