Three of Cinque Cime and 40 tunnels

[basscadet]

The journey took ages to this one - not so far as the crow flies - small road from Roveretto turned to single track (no passing places and horrifying drops) to Passo Xomo. Potholed track from there to the parking spot that was surprisingly big and modern. 4.50 euro charge for the day - made it feel like we were in the lakes! But up really high already (1200m) and was feeling the difference in temperature - should of worn troos Nice views though

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The route started right from the car park, a small path leading steeply up through the forest. Soon we were clambering over pinnacles, some with cables. First stop (female + climbing harness makes a simple pee a long stop) we found that the GPS had only registered 0.79 miles of distance, but 370m of ascent

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There then followed a more sustained VF section with a very long ladder and some fun traversing. This led to a steep trudge up a path through more pinnacles and low pines, with only occasional scrambling. A chamois was sighted in the undergrowth.

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looking back over pinnacles passed

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Then the clag rolled in (or maybe we ascended too high) but we had hit a fun narrow ridge, with only a few false summits before we found the underwhelming summit of Cima Bella Laita - the first of the 5. We stopped for refreshments, shivering in the cold mists

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The route improved after that - better scrambling and not too far to the next top - Cima Cuaro. The clag hid the views, but made the route more exciting as you literally did not know what was coming next. Only the altimeter gave any clue to how far below the 3rd summit we were - we knew it was higher than the previous peaks at 2023m, but so many ups and downs on pinnacles, there was almost as much descent as ascent, and was difficult to know which summits were what Had an air of Aonach Eagach about it - the pictures describe it far better than words!

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Thought this was the summit, but another col then up again before we realised our mistake by getting to the giant metal cross of the proper summit

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a little taste of home at 200m

When we got to peak 3 - Monti Forni Aldi, the clag ws so thick the rock had got greasy so after some lunch, we headed for the descent - Along the ridge a bit then left at the next col to head down to the Della Strada Gallerie 52.

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The Gallerie 52 is a military road built in 1917, and has 52 tunnels (as the name suggests). It had been the main draw of this route for me - the mountain route sounded great, but I love tunnels and no trip to Italy would be complete for me without exploring some. As we had come down after only 3 of the 5 peaks, we only had to walk through 40 of the 52. The signs didn't have very much english, but think the road goes for 6.3km, 2.3km of that being within tunnels. The best bit was the 'grand tunnel' where the road goes into a pinnacle then down like a corkscrew - amazing!

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Near the end there was a tunnel with a side tunnel, which was well worth exploring - had one of the guns in there! managed to scare Dougie by running off to explore tunnels without telling him and he lost me

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nice easy walk down the road back to the car, and a diversion on the way home meant even greater driving trauma. Brilliant day out.

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