Monte Vioz

Monte Vioz is a 3645 meters mountain in the Ortlers in Northern Italy. Due to global warming one can reach the summit in summer without any special equipment. The Rifugio Mantova is located just 100 meters below the summit.

Since I had read about Monte Vioz last year I’ve wanted to visit that location. The weather forecast for the next weekend looked promising, so we more or less spontaneously decided to go for it.

One day before our trip to Monte Vioz we stopped in Carisolo and visited the nature park Adamello Brenta. Because it already was quite late when we arrived, we didn’t have the chance to see a lot, but we managed to see Cascate Nardis, a famous waterfall in that area.

Day 1

The next morning we headed to Peio Fonti and arrived at about 11:45. After packing our backpacks and preparing ourselves we started our way to the top of Monte Vioz.

The most popular route to the summit is from the trailhead at Rifugio Doss dei Cembri at about 2200 meters and a 1400 meters climb from there. To get there, we took the cable car from the valley to Rifugio Scoiattolo and finally the chair lift to Rifugio Doss dei Cembri.

At 11:25 we began our ascent. The weather was brilliant, and because we set off quite late there weren’t many people on the trail. The rocky landscape was just beautiful. After 90 minutes we hit the magical 3000 meters altitude.

The higher we got, the more people that had started their trip earlier in the morning passed us on their way down. Finally, after a 3:15 hour walk up, we reached the refuge at 14:40. Because we wanted to stay over night at the refuge, we talked to the staff. We hadn’t called before, so we were pretty lucky to get two beds for the night, which later turned out were the last two ones.

After a short rest we tackled the last few meters to the summit. On our way up we looked for the geocache GCQJJ7. At 15:30 we stood on the summit of Monte Vioz.

Back at the refuge we enjoyed the great weather and wonderful view to the surrounding mountains. After diner we had the chance to see the sun setting down from 3600 meters.

Day 2

The next day began at 5:00. After seeing the sunset the evening before we also wanted to watch the sunrise. Because the sunrise was expected to take place at 5:45 we had time to have breakfast. It was cold and windy outside.

At 7:00 we started our descent. The way down was easier than expected and with 1:40 hour it also took less time than we thought. We didn’t meet a lot of people on our way, but about a kilometer before arriving at the chair lift we saw a bunch of hikers setting off. We passed about 40 of them, and there were still more coming.

Before taking the chair lift and cable car back to the valley, we looked for another geocache.

Summary

These two days were great. The weather was perfect and the landscape just wonderful. We walked around 11 km with an altitude difference of 3000 meters. In the end, it turned out that the tour could have been made in just one day, but we wouldn’t have had the chance to see sunset and sunrise from the top.