Colin, Jen, Erica, and I arranged babysitters for our kids on the same day so we could all get out together in the mountains near Cortina. After some searching and discussion, we decided to head up to Lake Sorapis, with me and Colin bringing via ferrata gear to do whatever portion of the Giro del Sorapis we could with the time we had.
Instagram must have made Lake Sorapis famous because the parking and the trail were absolutely mobbed a little before 10am when we arrived after handing off our kids. There was an order of magnitude or two more people heading here compared to everything else we’d done in the Dolomites nearby so far. After a faster, wider trail for a while, the higher trial has enough rocky sections with drop-offs on the side that people were limited by the slowest folks and rarely able to pass. We scooted around folks where we could and otherwise resigned ourselves to moving much more slowly than we would have liked and having less time to explore up there. Oh well. We were adding to the crowds, too.
We made it the 4 miles or so to the lake in about 1.5 hours. It is gorgeous and easy to understand why it’s become so Instagram famous with such turquoise waters and encircling limestone cliffs. But it’s a pretty small lake in the grand scheme of things and, strangely, the hut up there isn’t built next to the lake. We took some obligatory group selfies and then Colin and I peeled off to see what we could do. We decided that the Alfonso Vandelli route to the East of the lake was the closest and would have the most technical climbing on it.
We cruised up toward the route through lush grassy areas before hitting a more martian landscape. There was another party gearing up at the base of the route with overnight packs on who graciously let us head by them. We moved as fast as we could while being safe, aiming to finish the route up to the high shoulder. We’d been given a time to be home by our wives and so we kept watching the clock, deciding if we’d be able to make it back if we pressed on. The climbing was surprisingly steep, exposed, and fun despite traversing a long ways up and left. We kept deciding to go up and made it to the shoulder just after 1pm, so about 1.5 hours from the lake.
We quickly turned around and downclimbed the route in about an hour. From here, we scampered back down to the hut, got caught in traffic for a little bit on the main trail, and decided to take the much-less traveled trail that gained and lost much more vertical to get home. At 3pm, we were at the high point of this exit, enjoying great views. One last pass at 3:15pm and we were heading down nasty, loose slopes for a bit before hooking into an old road that took us down to our car a little after 4pm.
