Gardena Pass (Selva/Wolkenstein) - Ciampinoi - Ortisei

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Today was a guessing game of what we were going to do from Selva/Wolkenstein. It gets a bit confusing with the place names as they use Laden, Italian and German names. Selva seems to be the accepted name here for Wolkenstein. Now we have discovered the fancy tunnel and escalator it was a quick trip down to the bus station where we got the Selva bus. We had no idea where to get off and figured that we could have stayed on for another stop. We wanted to get the gondola up to the Gardena Pass which gives access into another valley after twisting it's way up to the Pass.

We found the street to the gondola which meant walking uphill to find the hidden seilbahn station. It's all quite straight forward when you know what you're doing and where to go. The gondola took us up to 2120m where we had hoped to walk to the Plan Gralba village. The only problem was, we couldn't find what trail to take and it looked like it followed the main road. We decided to give it a miss and walk back down from the Pass to Selva. It was very steep and slippery in parts but had the advantage of being directly under the towering mountains on one side and forest on the other with a look out to Sassolungo which dominates the landscape in the valley. After a picnic lunch we continued to the town and got another gondola up to Ciampinoi which is a sharp peak at 2200m. It sits out on it's own and gives views in every direction. Here, we laid back on the grassy slope and admired the views and watched a farmer making hay with his tractor on an impossible slope. We could see a couple of potential hikes for tomorrow. One, if we can find the right bus from the Sella Pass back to Ciampinoi and the other from Col Raiser and back to Ortisei. The second option looks good too providing we get the right bus to St Cristina.

I should mention that as well as hiking, this valley is a favourite place for mountain bikers. They are seen everywhere and bike on what seems impossible trails for bikes.

Back down in Selva we waited for a bus back to Ortisei which was held up by re-bituming the road. It was interesting to sit and watch the policeman with a whistle directing the traffic (he nearly wound his arm off) and the process with the machinery to do the job in two hits - one side then the other. Once rolled it was immediately useable by heavy traffic. It sure beats our habit at home of putting on tar, adding a layer of metal then watching it come off with use not too long after.

Arriving back in Ortisei it turned quite cold as it clouded over but the forecast looks okay for the next couple of days.

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