Day 7 – Hiking The Roda de Armentara

Jan 20, 2024

Today’s Adventure

And on the 7th day we didn’t rest! Instead Cindy and I set an alarm, geared up for the crisp 3° F weather, and caught an early-ish 8:20 AM westbound train from the Bahnhof in San Candido.

The train arrived in San Lorenzo a little after 9:00 where we transferred to a Südtirolmobil bus for the scenic ride south into the Val Badia. The twisty two lane mountain road included multiple hairpin turns and several tunnels – with this morning’s heavy skier traffic it would have been challenging enough in a car, much less a bus. Fortunately we arrived safely at our destination, the small ski town of Badia (namesake of the valley) right at 10:00 AM.

We walked across the street from the bus stop to the tourist bureau to check the condition of the winter hiking trails that Cindy had picked out for us. A helpful young lady at the desk gave us a fresh map, pencilled in some important landmarks, and sent us on our way.

This was not our first time in Badia – we stayed there for three nights in September of 2022 as a kick-off for our five week revenge travel tour of the Dolomites. We sort of remembered our way around so we didn’t have any trouble finding the trailhead; it was actually just up the hill from the base station for the La Crusc ski lift.

Today’s hike, the Roda de Armentara loop, took us around and up over a forested mountain ridge before dropping into the Armentara meadows and returning to Badia. The scenery was simply spectacular, especially with the crisp, clean air and brilliant blue skies. Did I mention that it was cold? I don’t think that it reached more than 20° F all day, and probably less in some of the hollows.

The trail was interesting, to say the least. It linked together everything from single lane roads to packed snow pathways to groomed winter hiking trails in order to complete the loop. The most challenging stretch, however, had about a foot of fresh snow on it with only one set of footprints to guide our way. We would have put on our snowshoes – we had them lashed on our backpacks – but there was so much snow that we honestly couldn’t find a good place to sit down and put them on.

We finally crested over the ridge and into the Armentara meadows about 1:00 PM, perfect timing for lunch at the rather oddly-named Ranch da André. This small log family run Hütte sits in a spectacular location with drop dead views of the surrounding mountains.

We briefly debated inside vs. outside seating but with those views there was no way that we were going inside even with the 20° F weather. We were both rather warm from the climb and knew that the brilliant sun would keep us comfortable. Cindy ordered a trio of traditional Tyrolean cheese dumplings with a white cabbage slaw while Stuart ordered spaghetti with diced tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and red chile flakes.

We lingered over lunch but finally forced ourselves to get up and finish the hike. That last leg, roughly four miles, was all downhill and quite steep in places as we bled off all of our elevation gains. The scenery continued to impress, however, as the morning’s forests were replaced with wide open meadows.

We arrived back in Badia with less than ten minutes to spare before the next bus down the valley. The buses only run once per hour on that route so the timing was perfect and saved us a long wait. We transferred to a fairly empty train for San Candido when we reached San Lorenzo and sat back to relax.

That relaxation only lasted until we reached Valdaora, where literally thousands of people were leaving a World Cup ski biathlon competition at nearby Antholz, a past and future Olympic venue. Hundreds of fans piled onto the train and it was suddenly standing room only. So much for our quiet ride home!

We completed the 9.5 mile Roda de Armentara hike in 4:13 with 2,441 feet of vertical. If you factor in the 3/4 mile each way to the train station from our apartment we walked 11 miles today. I think that we’re going to do something a bit less challenging tomorrow!

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.