Well, the excitement is starting to build in town as more and more racers dribble into town. The highlight of the day was the spontaneous of meeting of all the North Americans in the main church square beside the race banner. We were all aware that others were in town, but didn't set up a meet time. Anyways, there we were, and it was wonderful to meet all the old friends again and see the new ones. Maybe between the twelve or so of us we'll be able to translate the race meeting tomorrow that is held in Italian.
But anyways, here's a short video I shot at the Col de Malatra, which I subsequently found out was the high point of the Alta Via 1 trail at 2925 metres high (10000' ish). Yes, the high point of the second half of the race comes with 17 km left to go. And 1800m / 6000' of descent from there. But at least I know now what to expect.
As I say a couple of times, the section was SPECTACULAR, I was just in awe of my surroundings every step of the way. The weather is trending better in the next several days, so the skies should be clear and sunny to let the views through.
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| Monta Bianco in the background - wow, I can't believe where I am!! |
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| Refugio Bonatti - pretty nice digs for hikers |
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| Pretty obvious route marking for AV1, and my Crosslites were pretty happy to be on their home turf in Italy :-) |
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| The trail up the scree slope to the Col |
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| There's not much chance of wet feet unless it rains |
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| Daniel Probst, Beat Jegerlehner, and me. |
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| Cafe for lunch beneath the mountains. |
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| Yummy. Nothing like espresso and cafe latte on the sidewalk in Italy |
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| Typical side street in Courmayeur. I love the architecture here. |
2 comments:
hello,
no s for the name of the last col, it's Malatra
the big yellow arrow is the mark of alta via, not a specific race mark.
have a good race
Serge
Thanks for the correction on "Malatra", Serge - updated.
The Alta Via and other routes are very well marked here, it is quite impressive what has been done to put these permanent signs in place. It seems pretty difficult to go wrong.
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