This is the bivak. Very simple but with enough covers and gas to cook if you have something to cook. We hadn't, but improvised. Somebody had left some pasta behind. I mixed some milk powder with water and the rest of our cheese and the result wasn't bad at all. We were hungry though and hadn't eaten all day. Only a little rice without anything Maurizio had cooked for emergency. My dear Lilly, I ate it with the spoon you gave me as a present. Thank you dear niece!

And this is the inside of the bivak. Very simple, but very cosy:

And these are the Ibexes we spotted all afternoon, if you zoom you can see them. Beautiful creatures.

We were awake until eleven at Pian Gran because unbelievably I had a perfect Internet connection. Speaking of Internet, I called Swisscom the day before and was told that there had been a mistake with the 150 francs and they would call me. So I updated my blog in the candle light, romantic. In the morning we overslept because Maurizio stopped the alarm clock without me noticing, we left later than we had planned at seven thirty. All the others left at six, worried about possible thunderstorms. The path was beautiful but quite challenging.

Lake Trascolmen

Close-to-the-edge-do-not-fall walking

Not exactly difficult, but with quite a lot of scrambling, tiny paths on the edge and some chains. Especially after Bocchetta Büscenel the path climbed steeply and was always close to the edge. One shouldn't fall. When we came to rifugio Ganan, which is a proper bivak and is a five-hour walk from Pian Gran, we decided to stay and not continue to capanna Buffalora (another three hours). It is such a beautiful spot and we would have it all to us. And, besides, I had never slept in a real bivak before.

This is one view of the two beautiful Pian Gran huts and the view back into the valley we came up from. Maybe you can see the but waterfall, way up. Straight line down is the descent we suffered.

Today we arrived early at Pian Gran and thought we would be the only ones, but we are not. We are in six, all wanting to go on the long walk to capanna Buffalora tomorrow, all insecure about the weather. We were lucky, made it to this beautiful place just in time before it started to rain. The others arrived later, all soaked. The path was easy, but it was a long climb of 1300m and we hurried the last bit to avoid rain, thunder and lightning. On our way we chatted with a German lady from Stuttgart who had worked at Alpe d'Arbea once and decided to stay. She was nice enough to give us her number and told us to call so she would tell us where she had hidden the key of the next alp if we needed shelter in case of a thunderstorm.

Oh, I forgot, on the path from from Isola to Pian San Giacomo we climbed 1100m, went down 1200m and it took us 7 h and 30 min to get there.

We left their house this morning at ten after our best breakfast so far and with the rest of last night's pasta and some cheese and bread so we wouldn't starve at Pian Gran which is more a bivak than a hut and there is definitely nothing to eat.

We called the B&B we had booked into and they picked us up at the ristorante Moesa, where we had hoped to eat, but it was closed. What a pleasant surprise B&B Galizia turned out to be. It didn't officially exist any more, but seeing we called they took us in and not only that, they looked for us, gave us loads of delicious food and wine, washed all our clothes and offered a hilarious evening with stories of their very interesting life. A couple aged almost eighty, Ciro a "napoletano verace" (napoletano through and through) and retired Chef and Margaret, a Swiss woman from Lucerne. He even sang songs from Naples for us. It was such a wonderful evening. Incredibly nice and hospitable people.