Day 2 – Walking The Armentara Meadows

Sep 23, 2022

Today’s Adventure

For our second adventure in the Dolomites Cindy and I headed just a bit north in the Val Badia to the village of La Val. This involved two bus rides, one on a standard regional bus that connected us with the a smaller shuttle that was able handle the sharp turns and steep hills on the road up to La Val.

After checking out the town and taking a few photos we found the trailhead for the aptly-named Memento Vivere or “live the moment” path and started up the hill. This trail was mostly through farms and small clusters of homes with lovely views back across the Val Badia. The trail took us to the uber-picturesque Chiesa di Santa Barbara and the nearby ruins of the Chiesa di San Genesio.

From the two churches we picked up trail 15, a path that mostly followed a single lane paved farm road as it climbed up around the head of the valley. The paving ended as we crossed over a stream and started back along the opposite side of the valley. When the trail finally crossed over a ridge we found ourselves walking across the expansive Armentara meadows, which offered classic alpine terrain with lovely views all around.

We had crossed about half of the meadow when we decided it was time for lunch, but there literally was no place to sit down – none of the usual benches placed by the local tourist bureau, no big flat rocks, and not even any fallen trees. We ended up eating our lunch sitting on what we hoped was a dry patch of gravel and looking out across the valley below.

After lunch we continued to the base of La Crusc mountain where we stopped at the Rifugio San Croce for an apfelstrudel, a couple of cappuccinos, and our first official ‘Two Beers With A View’ photo. After that small celebration we walked downhill from the rifugio to catch the La Crusc cable car that would take us back down into Badia.

At the mid-station we were distracted by the charming Rifugio Ütia Nagler and decided to repeat the ‘Two Beers’ exercise as it was such a beautiful day (in spite of the forecast to the contrary). Heck, we’re on vacation, right?

From there we caught the lower half of the La Crusc chairlift back to the base station, which was just a couple of blocks from the Ustaria Posta, our hotel. All told we hiked 7.3 miles with 2,608 feet of vertical.

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To return to the main page for the entire trip click here.