Our parents had the most genius idea ever! Going on vacation a week before Christmas. Escaping the Christmas shopping stress. My older brother and I wanted to go on a hike. While I needed to prepare for a military march in January we decided to choose a more difficult trail and sleep in a CAS (Club Alpin Suisse, they are open all year and very cheap!) hut up in the mountains. Our goal was to reach Capanna Campo Tencia, near Faido before sunset…

We ended up hiking 31 km, 12 hours, and going up 2000 m.

Map, sleeping bag, gloves, snow gaiters, camera, tripod, shoes, hat, food, … my backpack:

Our journey started in Ambri, about 15km away from the Italian borders. As you can see it was going up really steep already in the beginning. Here 600 m:

Later on we also had more difficult parts like this „wall“ here. We almost had to climb. Luckily we „only“ had to go to the right and not move up too much (see at the picture).

We walked by a beautiful, frozen lake (Lago Tremorgio, 1770 m a.s.l.). It made funny noises just by itself (from breaking ice layers) and was even more amusing when we threw some big rocks on the surface. (It sounded like the groaning of a whale) 😀

Having a small break at 2138 m above sea level at Passo Venett:

Frozen lake with snow on it, Laghetto Campolungo, 2260 m a.s.l. In the picture below we were standing in the middle of the lake:

Suddenly at around five o’clock the sun was going down, very beautiful but I thought very dangerous. It gets dark really fast we soon we needed to put our head lights on. We were about 2 hours behind our schedule and knew that we were still far away from the hut. Until now were hiking in a more calm pace and then started to walk with a more determined speed, afraid of loosing orientation.

This picture was taken before reaching a side hill of Pizzo Lei di Cima (at 2480 m a.s.l.). It was getting dark.

As long as the moon was in our sight, we were able to see where it was going, but soon it was covered by a thick layer of clouds. In the midst of darkness and weary leg muscles we lost our path. We had lost track of the trail signals, painted on the stones. Instead of moving slowly and try to find back to the path we almost ran down to where we thought it was the right direction. We ended up having to  to walk 2 hours back up the mountain and look for the signals again!!

At 21:02, about three hours behind schedule we found the hut. We had water, a fire place, a kitchen to prepare our food and comfortable matresses to sleep on. We made it!!

My brother (right) and me before the hut the next morning:

Hiking down the next day we saw the hut from the opposite site where we have come from the night before:

Ice in the ground. Never seen that before and looked so gorgeous!

Below snow line again. It was getting warmer but still cold enough to freeze a little stream that was going down the path here.

It was a marvelous experience hiking up in the mountains like that. My first experience so far in a setting like this. We are looking forward to more stuff like that!