Day 14 – Pederü and the Fanes Hütte

Jan 27, 2024

Today’s Adventure

Day 14 is a milestone for Cindy and I for two reasons; the first is that we’re now halfway through this trip and the second is that we’ve now logged over 100 miles of hiking since our arrival in Italy. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to maintain that pace once we re-locate to Austria on Wednesday, but we’ll definitely give it a try!

For now we’re off to spend a weekend deep in the Dolomites at the far end of a canyon that branches off from the Val Badia. There are two marquee hikes that originate from this point, one that heads southwest to the Rifugio Fanes and one that heads northeast to the Rifugio Sennes. Each represents a full day’s work.

The good news is that there’s a small mountain inn, the Berggasthaus Pederü, that serves as a great starting point for both hikes. We’ll be staying there Saturday night in between tackling these two monsters, Fanes on Saturday and Sennes on Sunday. Cindy and I stayed at Pederü once before in February 2023 and found it to be very comfortable.

We left San Candido by train at 8:20 AM and arrived at the Bahnhof in St. Lorenzen about 45 minutes later. We then transferred to a Südtirolmobil bus to take us south into the Val Badia. At a very small town with a very big name (Zwischenwasser) we transferred again to a shuttle bus for the rest of the trip up the valley to Pederü.

When we arrived at the Berggasthaus Pederü (https://www.pederue.it/en) we checked in, dropped off our small overnight bag, and headed out to look for the trail that would take us up to the Rifugio Fanes (https://www.rifugiofanes.com/). There was no problem finding the trail as it is often traveled by tracked snowcats carrying meal or lodging customers to and from Fanes.

It was a long slog up and out of the canyon to reach Fanes, but fortunately the views made up for our lack of oxygen. We found a nice table on the sun terrace with plenty of sunshine and a very big view of the surrounding mountains. The table also backed up to the front of the building so we were well-sheltered from the cold winds that had been gaining strength all morning.

For lunch we ordered a meat and cheese platter to share. It came with a large bread basket as well as the traditional condiments like horseradish, pickles, and pepperoncini. The platter was more than enough for the two of us.

After we finished lunch we left the Rifugio Fanes and followed a short trail across the meadow to the Rifugio Lavarella. There we ordered a piece of their apple strudel to share plus two decaffeinated caffè americano and some schnapps (Pear Williams, of course).

At this point it was obvious that we were losing daylight and if we wanted to get back before dark we needed to gear up, put on our ice cleats, and head down the mountain. We arrived back at Pederü with plenty of time to clean up and relax a bit before going downstairs for dinner in the dining room.

Today’s hike was 8.6 miles long with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. We completed the hike in just over 3-1/2 hours and we were happy with that pace given the conditions. Tomorrow we’ll get up reasonably early, have breakfast here at Pederü, and then start the big climb for the Rifugio Sennes.

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.