With Mountains as Company

It’s drizzling when I arrive in Ortisei, a heavy mist settling over the towering mountains. The hotel is at the end of the main street, an old wooden building that smells like aged cigarette smoke and worn carpets when I step inside. An elderly woman sits in the front lounge, eyeing me with a strong level of distaste as I approach the reception desk. Whether it’s the tattoos, or the fact that I’m a single woman travelling alone, I’m not sure, but she seems a permanent fixture on that sofa for the duration of my stay. I am sufficiently intimidated to ensure that I slip my hiking boots off at the doorway every day I return from the muddy trails, and pad to my room on tiptoes in my socks.

There’s a crucifix on the landing and a deathly silence. It’s not quite tourist season yet but, even so, it seems quiet. My room is bright and welcoming, however, and smells like pine wood that reminds me of being in Finland. I have a small balcony, from which I will see the mountains on the rare moments when the clouds lift, and will serve as a good place to dry my damp clothes in the days to come.

After several hectic weeks (months?), my week alone in the Dolomites is a welcome reprieve. It is peaceful here and the air is crisp and clean. I’m itching to get into the hills I can see all around me but first, I’m going to need a map.

I acquire a map, a slice of strudel, and a cup of coffee, and hunker down over the wriggling array of routes before me. I’ve been eyeing up the Sasso Piatto summit but there seems a difference between the preferred route and what appears to be the obvious route from where I’m staying.

The woman in the tourist office had shrugged when I asked. “You can go that way,” she conceded, indicating my obvious route.

“Is there a reason people don’t?” I press. All of the internet seems fixed on the other route. “Is the view not as good?”

“The view’s the same. People just go the other way.” I let it go, although the next day, I will learn there is a reason why people go the other way.

She notes that I may not be able to summit yet, though, with snow still sitting atop some of the higher peaks. I take that under advisement and decide I’ll see when I get there how it looks. It wouldn’t exactly be my first time traversing snowy paths, but this time I’ve only got shorts with me and frostbite is not on my bucket list.

The next day starts off in muted sunshine, propelling me up to the starting point, at the top of the cablecar route. The view at the ridge is already astounding, the mountain range spilling out before me, green fields stretching through the valley between myself and the peaks. I leave the cablecar tourists back at the ridge, those who will just hop in lifts up and down to catch the viewpoints and leave the hiking trails to the rest of us, and start my trek.

It doesn’t take long before I am alone, with nothing but fields stretching out either side. I lose whatever few hikers are about and it’s just me, the chime of cowbells floating in the wind, and the mountains as company. And for the first time in a long time, I feel as though I can think. I feel as though a fresh breeze has cleared through my head, ear-to-ear, leaving room for my brain to actually process that past months; the past year. How much has changed. How much is to come.

I reach a steep grass bank and a signpost pointing me straight up it. It’s been a while since I tackled a hill like this, but I think back to Kilimanjaro. Slowly, slowly. One step, one breath. And up we go.

I let my mind wander as it wills, letting it work through whatever is stuck in there that it needs to think about. I talk out loud to myself when I hit a particularly complicated thought to process, and don’t feel the slightest bit silly about it. It’s almost like a form of meditation; meditation as a practice I have tried, but find I am too restless and impatient for it.

The clouds are gathering by the time I reach the top of this section of the hill, my legs burning in the best way possible. I stop by a rifugio (a mountain hut, common in this area of the world) for a bowl of soup and cup of tea, shivering as the clouds gather. The starting point to the Sasso Piatto summit push is another hour away, and that’s before the summit push itself. I can see snow ahead. And the clouds are getting thicker, and thicker.

I make the smart decision, if not the exciting one, and start down the hill, just in time for the rain to start. It’s on and off, not too heavy, but enough for me to hunker down under my raincoat. I stop for a carton of juice, my trusted companion on longer walks. My feet are aching and I’m cold but I have five kilometres left to go and the rain is threatening again. I keep going.

It pours the last five kilometres. I am soaked to the skin and grumbling under my breath, wiping rain from my eyes trudging through the fields. It’s a miserable way to end the walk, and I’ll leave it at that.

(Incidentally, the reason people go the other way? Is because it means a relatively flat walk through a valley for a final uphill summit push. Not a giant, steep uphill section followed by more uphill, followed by an uphill summit push. I wondered if I should tell the lady in the tourist office, but I’m not sure she really cared.)

Back at my hotel, I run a steaming hot bath and sink into it, warming my body from the outside in and resting my aching muscles. I feel the best I have in a long time.

The rest of my week in the Dolomites passes in a similar fashion. The weather is changeable. I see people occasionally, and get lost on my own frequently. I trip in a steep downhill section of pine forest and wonder idly how long it would take someone to find me if I really got hurt in here. I take two sets of cablecars up to the highest ridge, supposed to boast the best view of the Dolomites, and am greeted with clouds and snow obscured any kind of view (still in shorts, just in case you were wondering) and promptly return down a level. I search out a viewpoint that Google Maps swears up and down is one minute away. After going around in circles, I realise it means one minute if I could paraglide over the valley. As it is, I turn around and start back down.

When the view breaks through the clouds.

I grew up as a city girl. I hated being dragged into the countryside and on walks by my parents as a child. Now, as an adult, I feel restored by days like those I spent in the Dolomites. As though my body and mind are able to reset and get ready for the next thing. Where decisions are easy: up or down; strudel or fruit salad (strudel, always strudel). And despite rain or cloud, those moments when the sun breaks through and the mountains come into view is worth it all.