Day Hike in Corvara

Sunday:

I woke up around 6:40, Amy was already up... I started eating my breakfast when we heard a helicopter go over and a cheer outside on the street, so we walked down to watch the main pack of riders from the bike race go through. Very inspiring -- there were tons of riders (more than nine thousand). Lots of older-looking guys, not just to the young guns. Very few female riders -- maybe 1 in a hundred at most, more like 1 in 200.

A cool thing to see.

We breakfasted, got geared up, then made our way up to one of the other chalets (20 min walk) to meet up with our hiking group. We did a fairly moderate day hike mostly over terrain that is part of the ski resorts here, so lots of steep slopes going up and then sort of rolling hills and plateaus up on the top. Wonderful views, very nice weather (albeit a bit hot). There were two young women from Collett's leading the hike, then an older couple, a couple about our age or a bit younger, and then our family.  The older couple was from England and the other couple was from Ireland; it was fun to find out what they were up to.

Lots of lifts:

Looking northwest, back to Corvara:

The central blob in the panorama shot below is the Sela Massif (hope I spelled that right):

Up at Utia Pralongia, maybe at the 1/3 point of the hike:

Looking east -- not sure what the name of this thing is:

and back to the north, with Corvara in the valley below:

It was a fine hike, relaxing for the second half or two thirds. We hiked our way around in a semi-circle and then hit the top of the Col Alt cable car -- Amy and the kids opted to take the ride down, and I decided to hike my way down instead (took a very direct route).

Swimming in the afternoon at a very smallish man-made "lago" off in the western part of town. We didn't especially feel like walking, so we hopped in the car to drive it, but were utterly stymied due to all the streets closed off due to the race. Finally we just drove back to the apt -- Amy opted for a shower while the kids and I walked the way to the lake. Once we got there I decided that I'd had enough sun, so I sat it out while they swam. I am told the water was quite cold (fed by streams from the mountain).

We could hear the tail end of the race going on a few hundred yards to the east (that was where the finish line was); people were still straggling in (this was at about the 8 hours 45 mins mark).

Our plan for tonight is to eat in (cooking pasta), then go talk with the Colletts folks to get all the details of our hut hike ironed out.