Via delle Bocchette - Day 3 - Bocchette Centrale
In the morning after breakfast we started towards the Sfulmini Glacier. Most people took the route left of the glacier, hiking up through a lot of loose gravel. We chose the route starting at the right side of the glacier, as we had read that the other one was prone to rockfall. That meant we first had to cross a snow field though and then walk up the edge of the glacier. Once we reached the snow field, we put on our crampons, an started to cross. Luckily the crossing was easy as the snow was firm and crunchy. As we made our way up we moved on from the snow field onto the glacier and then walked up to the Bocca d’Armin.
From the col on it was a short climb up secured by wire, and then the traverse along the ledges started. While the day before on the Bocchette Alte we had quite a lot of climbing up an down, today was mostly traversing. The ledges here were also a lot more narrow and often snaking around edges, sometimes going in curves, allowing for great picture opportunities. To make the views even more stunning, fog moved in and out, creating a mystic atmosphere. Luckily we only had very little oncoming traffic, and always in spots where it was easy to pass each other.
When we reached the iconic view to the Campanile Basso it was unfortunately covered in fog. As we continued on it emerged again as we climbed down around the base. That section was mostly unsecured with a bunch of scrambling. Once getting to the bottom, we climbed up the other side, where we had a great view of climbers up at the Campanile Basso. After that we started on the next series of ledges that brought us to the end of the via ferrata.
The last section of the ferrata is split into two short options to finish off. One route continues the traverse to the Bocca di Brenta, in the direction of the Rifugio Pedrotti, the other descends down the rock face to the trail that leads up to the same Bocca, or down to the Rifugio Brentai. We chose the latter, as that was the direction we wanted to go and it saved us a few meters of scrambling down a snow field. After a few ladders the last section of the via ferrata ended in a field of big boulders. Once we had scrambled over that, we reached a small snow field which we had to cross, and then got to the hiking trail to the hut. While the first was pretty steep, the last half hour or so was just nice walking through grassy fields until we finally reached the Rifugio Brentai.
