Day 11 – A Stroll Near Santa Maddalena

Jan 24, 2024

Today’s Adventure

This morning Cindy and I decided that with 70 miles already logged for this visit to the Dolomites we should probably ease up a bit for Day 11. We have some challenging days coming up and want to be sure that we’re ready for them. With this in mind we found a relatively short winter hike starting near Santa Maddalena that would let us explore the upper reaches of the Gsieser Tal.

The Gsieser Tal is a picturesque alpine valley that ends more or less at the Austrian border. This valley is home to several small towns living on the edge between agriculture and tourism, the latter primarily associated with cross country skiing (at least during the winter months). The mountains here are softer and have more tree cover compared with the notably more rugged Dolomites just a few miles to the south. It’s interesting to see such a distinct variation only a few miles apart.

Our adventure began with a Südtirolmobil bus from San Candido headed west through Dobbiaco to Welsberg. At Welsberg the bus turned northeast and took us up the Gsieser Tal past Santa Maddalena to Talschluss. This was literally the end of the road and the bus route as well!

At Talschluss we found the beginning of Trail 49, a groomed winter hiking trail maintained by the Alpenverein Südtirol (AVS), a.k.a. the South Tyrol Alpine Club. Hikers in this region owe a huge debt to the members of the AVS and the CAI, the Club Alpino Italiano, for the incredible work that they do maintaining hiking trails like this one.

Trail 49 took us steadily upward through a forest towards a pair of quaint hüttes (mountain restaurants). We had visited one of these, the Kradorferhütte, during our visit last February so we decided to check out the Messnerhütte this time around. https://www.messnerhuette.com/

When we reached the already busy Messnerhütte we lucked out and found a small table (actually a large log stump!) with two matching log stools out on the sundeck. The last thing that we wanted to do on such a beautiful day, especially after a hard push up the trail, was sit inside.

Cindy ordered their trio of Tyrolean dumplings or ‘Knödel’ : one each with spinach, mushroom and cheese on a white cabbage salad. Stuart had the regional favorite hiker’s lunch of fried eggs and speck on roasted potatoes. To finish off the lunch our server brought us complimentary samples of their homemade apple strudel schnapps. Yes, it did taste like apple strudel, but with a lot more kick!

When we arrived back at the bus stop in Talschluss we had hiked 4.4 miles with just under a thousand feet of vertical gain in an hour and a half. Hopefully today’s shorter hike will help us to be ready for a big day tomorrow – we’ll be exploring new territory near Cortina d’Ampezzo, or that’s the plan, anyway …

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.