Passo San Pellegrino to Rifugio Mulaz on September 14, 2019.
We tore ourselves away from Hotel Arnika, although not by choice, and headed to Rifugio Mulaz on the Alta Via 2 (AV2) from Passo San Pellegrino.
At Rif. Mulaz we had to sleep on the dining room floor because their beds were all booked. “It’s an emergency”, they told us. Yes, it was, for us at least. There were approximately 10 people sleeping on the floor and the staff seemed well-prepared for this. They efficiently rearranged the tables and chairs before bringing out mattresses for us. This was fortunate because we weren’t carrying camping gear. To our surprise, we slept very well.
The Alpine Club huts don’t turn you away even if they’re full so long as there’s nowhere else nearby that can accommodate you. In the Pyrenees, during one particularly heavy rainstorm, we arrived at the end of the stage where we just missed booking the last room in the hotel. We called the auberge. They were full and the Club Alpin Français (CAF) Refuge des Bouillouses also said they were full. Dripping wet, we arrived at the CAF Refuge and asked where we could pitch our tent. “Oh this isn’t a night to be camping”, we were told. We were instead welcomed to spend the night in their annex that was far preferable to setting up our tent in the pouring rain.
Today’s stats were 8 miles and 4,400′ gain.
The tracks for the 2019 continuation of our AV2 hike can be downloaded from the links below:
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The hiking guide we used for the Alta Via 2 was “Trekking in the Dolomites” by Gillian Price,
We use Cicerone Press books for most of our European hiking adventures.
We’re both members of the Öesterreichischer Alpenverein, Sektion Britannia, or the Austrian Alpine Club (UK division), Membership includes Alpine hut reciprocity as well as worldwide rescue, medical and repatriation insurance. Hut reciprocity means that we can stay at any nation’s Alpine club hut and pay half price for the accommodation. To the best of my knowledge, this is the least expensive Alpine club membership that includes hut reciprocity and doesn’t have any membership requirements other than paying the annual membership fee, which is £92.25 for the two of us because we’re “over the hills”. Membership is open to all, worldwide. We’ve been members for over a decade now and during this time (as well as preceding it) we’ve been very fortunate; we’ve never had occasion to call for an official rescue.
I carried a Garmin InReach Mini satellite communicator on all our treks this year. I’ve never carried one, or owned one, during our European trips in past years. However, we’ve been very lucky. We came close to needing to call for help on July 11, 2016, when Patsy fell during our first attempt to traverse the length of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. When she fell she partially tore the medial collateral ligament in her left knee. She could barely walk but, on that occasion, we were rescued by a young French couple who had parked nearby and were out doing a short walk. They showed up a couple of hours after we’d taken shelter in an unoccupied shepherd’s cabin. The weather was stormy too, with on and off rain, so I couldn’t use the solar charger to charge the phone which only had about a 20% charge left. There was no cell phone reception in any case. Things weren’t looking good, but at least we had our camping gear which affords a measure of safety. Nevertheless, I don’t know what we’d have done if this couple hadn’t appeared. Next time we might not be so lucky.