We woke to blue skies again on our second morning in Canazei. Steve was up early and ran to Belvedere (where we had taken the chairlift the day before). When he saw how nice it was he made good time back to the hotel so we could take advantage of the nice weather on a hike. The lady at our hotel told us it would be our best day and after looking over our options we decided to do a long day hike in the Rosengarten (called Catenaccio in Italian). We were supposed to have visited the Rosengarten for several days on our trip last year, but had to abandon our plans due to deep snow (Snowy Rosengarten). We were eager to see what we had missed last year!

We mobilized quickly to pack, have breakfast, and catch the bus to Pera di Fassa. To save time we rode the three stage chairlift to Ciampedie (in Ladin it means “field of God”). We lingered in this beautiful spot last year and had a delicious lunch, but with some clouds forming we didn’t want to delay and were on our way to Rifugio Vaiolet and beyond. Last year we had reached Rifugio Passo Principe, but turned back after deciding the snow made our trek a no go. This time around it was so much easier hiking up to the pass.

We took a short break at Rifugio Passo Principe and assessed the weather. It still looked okay, despite being cloudy, so we pushed ahead to Passo d’Antermoia and eventually out through Val de Udai to Mazzin in Val di Fassa. We were thrilled to have a good, full day in the Rosengarten and really enjoyed our hike. It was dramatic scenery and gorgeous!

These are the book times and elevations for our hike:

Ciampedie (1997m) to Rifugio Gardeccia (1950m): 45 minutes, 47m/154 ft descent
Rifugio Gardeccia to Rifugio Vaiolet (2243m): 45 minutes, 293m/962 ft ascent
Rifugio Vaiolet to Rifugio Passo Principe (2559m): one hour, 316m/1037 ft ascent
Passo Principe to Passo d’Antermoia (2770m): 45 minutes, 211m/693 ft ascent
Passo d’Antermoia to Rifugio Antermoia (2497m): one hour, 273m/896 ft descent
Rifugio Antermoia to Mazin (1372m), via Val di Dona and Val de Udai: 2 hrs 15 minutes, 1125m/3691 ft descent

Total: 6.5 hours, 820m/2690 ft ascent, 1398m/4587 ft descent

You would think Norah would be tired after an all day hike, but she still managed a lot of play time on the playground when we got back to Canazei. After dragging her away from the zipline we returned to L’Osteria da Besic for dinner (we ate here last year and several times this trip): Insalata mista, cheese plate, pizza, and delicious mascarpone with berries for dessert. Walking back to our hotel we saw a Mack truck drive by full of snow and we found the street by our hotel blocked off. They were having a small festival and had created a ski/snowboard jump in the street. We watched for awhile before retiring to our room. It was a short, but good stay in Canazei!