Hiking in the Dolomites! Passo Pordio - #1

If you put ONE place on your bucket list to travel to in your lifetime - it has to be the Dolomites!  We loved it there!!  We found a guesthouse/hotel in Canazei, Italy on Friday Sept 16th.  Up until this point, we hung out at the beach and hunkering around Riva Del Garda and the surrounding areas (including Venice) for 4 nights, while we recovered from the race.  During this time I had zero motivation to run!  I was quite happy with our daily walking quota and beach life.  Now, if I had a bike to ride, I could have been convinced otherwise, but my body wasn't interested in running!

We parted ways with Sarah in Venice (boo!) and we continued on to Canazei.  The area is know as Val Di Fassa and is basically ski town after ski town for miles.  Our pension was right beside one of the trams, at the base of the Dolomites.

We did two big hikes while in Canazei.  The first hike was called the Passo Pordoi.  It was beautiful!  I can't even put words to how lucky I felt to be there.  To be surrounded by these massive, beautiful mountains and to be out there with my family enjoying them together.  It's just something you have to experience for yourself to truly understand.

Trent hiked from town all the way up to the pass.  Carter and I took two trams and hiked to meet Trent at the town.We had packed a lunch and found a nice place to sit and fuel up.

Trent proceeded to hike up and we took one more tram to meet him.  From there the three of us hiked to the top.  It was over 10,000 feet and had a hut at the top where we had hot chocolate.

We had good weather for most of the hike, however the top was clouded in and there was a bit of rain. 

We decided to decend with Trent, past the 3rd tram we took up.  Carter did amazing!  Our total time out was 6hrs and had lots of time on our feet.  He handled the fixed rope sections very well and was careful of his footing with lots of confidence.  We talk about everything, play games and it is incredible to see our 10yr old accomplish things like this at such a young age.  We are so proud of him!  And what makes it better is how much he actually enjoys it :)

Now, to keep it honest, there was some gripping and groaning on the last 45min hike back to the two trams.  It was hot and Carter was done.  Done.  But he buckled down and got it done and we were back to smiles and joking on the tram rides down.  Not 1hr later he was bouncing around, full of energy and had totally forgotten about how tired he was.  Trent and I on the other hand... well, lets just say it was pizza and wine night!  (that's how they recover in the Dolomites)  ;)