Days are visibly getting shorter, as it was still dark when I woke up. I started on forest roads until Varful Lacauti (17777 m) with its weather station. I passed a refugio and despite of a sign, there was neither marking nor trail later on. The former forest road was blocked by lots of dead trees with no real option of going around, because there were more dead trees... I was fighting for hours without much progress!!! At a shelter, the trail disappeared into the bushes, so I made up my own trail. When I got back to the 'real trail' there wasn't much trail. But I came across some forest roads and descended on them to a wide and dusty forest road. I had planned to continue on it instead of fighting my way through the forest, but there were 2 trucks and 1 jeep passing by within a few minutes, all leaving me in a dust cloud. So I gave the trail a second chance ;) And it was a nice little 4WD track through a beech forest. Soon however, it disappeared again and I descended on random forest roads, until I was back on track and on a nice forest road. When the gpx track and trail on my map were about to leave that road, into nothingness, I decided to take a detour of about additional 6 km, walking on forest roads in the valley instead of hiking the main ridgeline. Not my favorite thing, but better than the fight against dead trees and slow progress with little food. I guess the trail was already bad for years, but with all the dead trees from the bark beetle, it's really horrible in some spots.
When I was nearly back on the main ridgeline, I found trail markings and a good trail. It was sheep land again and when I saw a sheep flock, I was expecting the next dog attack. But to my surprise, the dogs did not bark at all and seemed rather afraid of me!!! I had waved to the shepher and he had given me the sign to proceed, walking even through the flock!!! It was incredible :)I continued, stopping for blueberries and setting up my tent in the forest. I was surprised by the severe thunderstorms at night, which made a little light show but maybe it won't rain too much tomorrow then. I don't really have the food to enjoy a tent day or spend an additional day at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment