my second Alpine adventure
Aug. 16th, 2009 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaThis morning clovis_t and I joined some folk we met through the Couchsurfing web page for my second Alpine adventure.
The first plan had been to meet at a Metro station I'd not yet been to at 08:00, so I checked the Metro web page, which said that it would take 10 minutes to get there from my nearest red-line station. Knowing that it is 15 minutes walk to that station, we decided to leave the house at 07:15, figuring that a spare 20 minutes for what could be done in 25 minutes should be enough. Then, late the night before, someone else suggested a meeting time of 09:00 at a closer station. We agreed shook our heads about the last-minute change, but agreed to it. Then decided that we'd go to the first meeting place/time and make certain that evey one got the word, then, if we didn't find anyone, we'd have time to get back to the second meeting time/place.
However, when we got to the station the next train to arrive announced that it was going only part way towards our destination. We opted to take it, figuring we could pick up another train when we got there. When it arrived at the point it mentioned every one got out, and all walked purposefully past a paper sign announcing the "alternate bus service" to the destination we expected the train to go to. We followed the herd, and paused to ask a Metro employee how to reach our destination, and he said take the bus, and pointed to the herd. Following them got us to a bus stop, which had bus waiting, so we took it, me following our progress on my map as we went. When we reached the Metro station before the one we'd been aiming at, the bus stopped, and everyone got out, and walked down the stairs to another Metro station. We considered just walking to the correct station, but, foolishly, followed the herd. Then we waited. A bit more than five minutes later a train finally arrived, we took it the one stop down the line, and walked up the stairs to find the station. A lovely, green, grassy station, with a parking lot. Would have been a fine place to meet up with our fellow hikers. If it weren't 08:29 for an 08:00 meeting. Oops. So we walked back to the bus stop and boarded the bus back to the other station, where we arrived with five minutes to spare.
We met at a Metro station and hopped into a car for a drive to the Alps, reaching the town of Canzo at around 10:30 or so. We took the "Sentiero Gelogico" trail up the hill to the "3rd Aple" (click the link for the town, then click on the second pin in the map to see where that is--zoom in our out, as pleases you), where we stopped for lunch. Then we progressed on up the hill to La Colma, and back along delle Alpi to the town.
It was a truly delightful day. The geologic interpretative signs along that part of the trail looked like they contained much useful information. Certainly the illustrations to the text were great, and the bits of the text one of my fellow hikers translated for me (and the bits I could read because the geologic terms are the same) were full of useful information. This part of the Alps contains sedimentary rocks from when it was all under the ocean, but a high part of the ocean, so that layers which are 100s of meters thick elsewhere are only 10s of meters thick in this area.
nose of fold in limestone.
The Corni di Canzo is a lovely peak, isn't it?
There are a bunch more photos from the day in my Facebook album. I hope to write a geo-blog post about the adventure tomorrow, after I've had some rest.
Tonight I'll content myself with the comment that the Italian approach to hiking is as laid-back as everything else seems to be. Our hike consisted of 1 hour, 58 minutes elapsed from meeting folk at the Metro station to starting walking. 1 hour, 27 minutes to the 3rd Alpe, where we spent 59 minutes over lunch, followed by 29 minutes to the next stop, where we spent 34 minutes, and then 57 minutes down the hill to the 1st Alpe, where we spent 11 minutes, and a final 27 minutes back to town, where we spent 1 hour 26 minutes at the bar (and the short walk back to the car) before doing the 1 hour 37 minutes drive back to town and public transit to our home station. I think I will return to this area for other hikes (I bought the map!), but I may want to do it on my own, where I can spend a greater percentage of my time hiking, and less waiting for people to finish relaxing. I was out of the house for 12 hours, and only 3 hours 20 minutes of that was hiking. A beautiful hike, I recommend it!
clovis_t and I joined some folk we met through the Couchsurfing web page for my second Alpine adventure. The first plan had been to meet at a Metro station I'd not yet been to at 08:00, so I checked the Metro web page, which said that it would take 10 minutes to get there from my nearest red-line station. Knowing that it is 15 minutes walk to that station, we decided to leave the house at 07:15, figuring that a spare 20 minutes for what could be done in 25 minutes should be enough. Then, late the night before, someone else suggested a meeting time of 09:00 at a closer station. We agreed shook our heads about the last-minute change, but agreed to it. Then decided that we'd go to the first meeting place/time and make certain that evey one got the word, then, if we didn't find anyone, we'd have time to get back to the second meeting time/place.
However, when we got to the station the next train to arrive announced that it was going only part way towards our destination. We opted to take it, figuring we could pick up another train when we got there. When it arrived at the point it mentioned every one got out, and all walked purposefully past a paper sign announcing the "alternate bus service" to the destination we expected the train to go to. We followed the herd, and paused to ask a Metro employee how to reach our destination, and he said take the bus, and pointed to the herd. Following them got us to a bus stop, which had bus waiting, so we took it, me following our progress on my map as we went. When we reached the Metro station before the one we'd been aiming at, the bus stopped, and everyone got out, and walked down the stairs to another Metro station. We considered just walking to the correct station, but, foolishly, followed the herd. Then we waited. A bit more than five minutes later a train finally arrived, we took it the one stop down the line, and walked up the stairs to find the station. A lovely, green, grassy station, with a parking lot. Would have been a fine place to meet up with our fellow hikers. If it weren't 08:29 for an 08:00 meeting. Oops. So we walked back to the bus stop and boarded the bus back to the other station, where we arrived with five minutes to spare.
We met at a Metro station and hopped into a car for a drive to the Alps, reaching the town of Canzo at around 10:30 or so. We took the "Sentiero Gelogico" trail up the hill to the "3rd Aple" (click the link for the town, then click on the second pin in the map to see where that is--zoom in our out, as pleases you), where we stopped for lunch. Then we progressed on up the hill to La Colma, and back along delle Alpi to the town.
It was a truly delightful day. The geologic interpretative signs along that part of the trail looked like they contained much useful information. Certainly the illustrations to the text were great, and the bits of the text one of my fellow hikers translated for me (and the bits I could read because the geologic terms are the same) were full of useful information. This part of the Alps contains sedimentary rocks from when it was all under the ocean, but a high part of the ocean, so that layers which are 100s of meters thick elsewhere are only 10s of meters thick in this area.
nose of fold in limestone.
The Corni di Canzo is a lovely peak, isn't it?
There are a bunch more photos from the day in my Facebook album. I hope to write a geo-blog post about the adventure tomorrow, after I've had some rest.
Tonight I'll content myself with the comment that the Italian approach to hiking is as laid-back as everything else seems to be. Our hike consisted of 1 hour, 58 minutes elapsed from meeting folk at the Metro station to starting walking. 1 hour, 27 minutes to the 3rd Alpe, where we spent 59 minutes over lunch, followed by 29 minutes to the next stop, where we spent 34 minutes, and then 57 minutes down the hill to the 1st Alpe, where we spent 11 minutes, and a final 27 minutes back to town, where we spent 1 hour 26 minutes at the bar (and the short walk back to the car) before doing the 1 hour 37 minutes drive back to town and public transit to our home station. I think I will return to this area for other hikes (I bought the map!), but I may want to do it on my own, where I can spend a greater percentage of my time hiking, and less waiting for people to finish relaxing. I was out of the house for 12 hours, and only 3 hours 20 minutes of that was hiking. A beautiful hike, I recommend it!
