Day 4 – Exploring The Innerfeldtal

Jan 17, 2024

Today’s Adventure

As the weather service predicted Day 4 dawned cloudy in the far northern part of Italy and stayed that way. We had occasional snow flurries and temperatures that hovered in the 20’s. It just proves that not every day in the Südtirol is filled with blue skies and sunshine, although we’ve been lucky over the years to have mostly good if not excellent weather during our visits.

The weather didn’t stop us from heading out and exploring, though. After breakfast we headed over to our favorite bus stop at the base of the nearby Monte Baranci ski area and hopped onto a Südtirolmobil bus heading south towards Sesto. We got off at the second stop, a parking area that serves a beautiful valley known as the Innerfeldtal. The valley is part of the Drei Zinnen Nature Park and is located in the heart of the Sexten Dolomites.

We found the trailhead and started up the trail into the Innerfeldtal, with ‘up’ being the operative word. The outbound section of today’s hike was almost all uphill and a real grinder in spots. Fortunately the snow was well-packed and the trail was easy to follow.

When we reached the upper end of the valley we grabbed a table in the Dreischusterhütte for lunch. This a mountain refuge operated by the AVS or ‘Alpenverein Südtirol’, the Alpine Club of South Tyrol.

https://www.drei-schuster-huette.com/de/

The menu was surprising for someplace billed as a refuge so we decided to share two of their featured dishes. One dish was homemade black ravioli filled with gorgonzola and pear that were served with walnut butter. The other dish was rye flour tagliatelle served with pumpkin cream and a parsley tomato pesto. Cindy paired this combo with a local Kalterersee red wine while Stuart went with his usual Forst pils draft.

We shared our table today with a nice couple from Trieste, Italy. The sharing of tables sometimes happens at small mountain huts given the limited number of seats. Our experience has been that this takes some getting used to but often adds a real local flavor to the meal.

In today’s case we figured out in spite of the other couple’s limited English (and our non-existent Italian!) that they own an older motorhome and have camped in the Dolomites many times. We were able to share some Airstream photos with them and groan about maintenance and storage challenges. Some things are universal …

After lunch we decided to put on our snow cleats to ensure our safety during the descent to the trailhead. They definitely earned their keep today and we made great time on the downhill run. From the trailhead we crossed the road and caught a bus back into San Candido.

Today’s hike was 7.5 miles total with 1,500 feet of vertical. We completed the hike in 3 hours, not counting our relaxed lunch, of course!

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.