Val Masino

After saying goodbye to Julian’s family in Chiusa we would continue our way towards Val Masino. We decided to avoid toll roads, to save some money and hopefully enjoy some nice views. We aren’t completely sure we actually saved money, but we definitely enjoyed the nice views. We drove through Passo della Mendola and Passo del Tonale, and if you ever get the chance to drive here you absolutely should. It was quite a difficult drive, but Julian did amazing and the views did not let us down for even one second. We saw a camper stop in Passo del Tonale and decided we would stay the night. We parked on this beautiful camper stop and got ready to cook dinner. Just before starting our dinner, neighbors arrived. There were two men and a woman in a very small car, with some very random stuff. They asked us if it was allowed to pitch a tent, we weren’t sure but told them that if they were going to, it would be better on the parking than in the woods, since we were in the middle of a bear area. This convinced them and with a lot of noise and chaos they pitched their tent. We had dinner and went outside to play a game before doing the dishes when Julian got talking with one of the guys, I joined them, and before we knew it, it was dark out and we had to start doing dishes. They asked to borrow our chairs and they planned on smoking last of their weed, and finishing all of their alcohol since it was their last vacation day. They also told us they planned on hiking early in the morning the next day.

In the morning our neighbors were still fast asleep and the pile of empty bottles told us they would be skipping the hike (as we suspected). We continued towards Edolo where we would work at McDonald’s for a bit before continuing to Val Masino, but in Edolo we found a great place to sleep and just went with it. We took a bath in the ice cold river in the dark and accidentally got our biodegradable soap sheets wet, but we were glad we could wash ourselves before bed.

On August 7 we eventually made our way to Val Masino and parked in the parking lot of an abandoned hotel in a village called Cataeggio, Sondrio, in the middle of the valley. Upon arrival we couldn’t believe how absolutely beautiful the view was. We were parked next to a bridge, looking over a natural pool of glacier water and looked up at the most perfect mountains where the sun highlighted the entire outline. We walked around for a bit, exploring the village and looking for the public restroom when we discovered there would be a local festival during the whole weekend, which we will visit later in the evening.

We went bouldering for a bit and explored the possible places where we could boulder the upcoming days. Two French boys asked if they could use our crashpads for a bit and of course they were welcome to. Quickly we came to the realization that they could climb far better than us and they destroyed every boulder they tried while we were struggling to come off the floor. But even though we are very inexperienced outdoor climbers, we had some fun trying out stuff and walking around for a bit. Sadly, Julian stepped in shit while trying to find a new boulder problem, considering the amount of toilet paper scattered around the area, we were pretty sure this was not a dog’s work and Julian quickly got to cleaning his foot and slipper, and washed it off in the natural pool. After this happened we decided to call it a day and get ready to cook dinner.

After dinner we went for a quick swim in the natural pool and washed ourselves with what was left of our biodegradable soap and enjoyed the ice cold water for a bit. After our swim, we got dressed and heard the music from the festival from our van, which got us curious to see what it was all about. The festival consisted of a bar, a podium with a DJ and a dance floor. Locals all got together here and it was fun to see that those kind of village events are similar throughout different countries.

We woke up early to get ready for a day of outdoor bouldering, we unfortunately did have a bit of a slow start, we had some trouble waking up and once we left the bed we realized we had to do some groceries. So we walked down into the village and bought some lunch and dinner and a (very cheap) bottle of white wine in a very cute store run by a typical Italian family. The store itself was very narrow and lots of stuff had been cramped in there, we tried ordering some vegetables and bread with two men who barely speak English, but in the end, with lots of pointing and laughing we got the right things. The cashier was busy conversing with who we thought to be her mom, while also talking very passionately on the phone, and also trying to help us in very broken English. Eventually everything went okay and we left the store an experience richer.

Once we were ready to start bouldering it was already noon, so we quickly gathered our stuff and walked towards the woods. We tried to find the path towards the boulders, but were unlucky. We had no idea where we had to enter the woods exactly and once we found it, we had to cross some pretty dense bushes. It was hot and we were ready to give up, when I realized we hadn’t even brought our climbing shoes. This meant we had no choice but to turn back. We decided to repack our bags and drive for a bit towards a different area, hoping for more luck. We drove for a few minutes, deeper into the valley and arrived at a different boulder location, here the boulders were close to the road and easily accessible. We bouldered for quite a while and decided to call it a day. Since the festival was quite loud and you’re technically not allowed to sleep in a parking lot for two nights in a row we decided to sleep on a parking lot next to this boulder area. We dove into the river again for a quick shower, this is where the biodegradable soap fell in the water again and sadly this would be the end of it. We enjoyed the ice cold water, had a quick dinner and played a game of Azul (Julian won). We went to bed early and hoped that we had read the signs correctly and are actually allowed to spend the night here.

We discussed our options for the day and concluded that it would be smart to drive down to the main road and do some work at McDonald’s since it was an extremely hot day and we were quite tired. We also had to get groceries, an air mattress for our friend and water earplugs for me. So the shopping air conditioned shopping center would be the best place to spend the day. We drove down, which took way longer than expected due to the fact that I forgot there was a cup of coffee on the counter and Julian forgot to tie down the bed, so after a 5 min drive, both the coffee and the foot of the bed flew all across the van. We stepped into the McDonald’s and started working, I waited about 20 minutes for our coffee, but at least we could get our work done. We also had lunch here, Italy has this great deal where you can get a double burger, medium fries and medium drink for only €6, which is for our Dutch minds an extremely good deal. Julian did however get a Filet ‘O fish, which made me contemplate our relationship, but I got over it and am happy to share that we are still happily together.

We finished our lunch and decided to walk to Decathlon, a 600m walk, which sounds very doable and safe. But sometimes we forget that not every place is as walkable as The Netherlands, so there were no footpaths and no shade. We did safely get to the other side, but were now extremely sweaty again, which made us decide to just walk around Decathlon for like an hour. We bought an air mattress for our friend and found earplugs so I could happily swim in lake Como the upcoming week. Our walk back to the car was again an experience, but we made it! I pretty much threw everything we bought in the van and ran back towards the air conditioned shopping center because outside it was now so hot that there was just no way of being there for more than 10 minutes.

We went in the Iperal, a very big grocery store and decided to just walk through every isle to make sure we didn’t miss anything (and so we could delay getting back in the heat). Walking around in foreign supermarkets is one of our favorite things to do, just browsing and looking at stuff, wondering what this is for or what that would taste like. We took our time and circled back a few times, because somehow we still forgot a few things? But eventually we did it and were ready to head back up the mountain. We parked in the same place we slept the night before and went bouldering again for a bit. We had some fun and wanted to get ready for the night. However, when we arrived at the parking lot we saw that apparently, you were only allowed to park for a maximum of 4 hours. This is when we realized we were either very lucky no police had come by the night before, or they didn’t care, but we didn’t want to push our luck and decided to spend the night further in the valley. We found the tourist office had a parking lot where we could spend the night.

A thunderstorm was coming our way, so we decided to head into the village for a beer and wait it out a bit. This cafe is apparently well known by all climbers in the area and the vibe was great. After finishing our beers, the weather seemed to calm down and we decided to head back for a great night’s sleep.

We woke up at 7 to make sure we could start our hike early and before the heat would get to us. We packed up, got ready and drove off towards the start of the hike. First along the dry banks of the river, then we entered the cool shade of the forest. In the forest the path got steeper and we passed an amazing boulder spot and looked around for a bit, trying to see if some boulders could be within our grade (they were not). We continued our way upwards to Bagni di Massino, where we stumbled upon the most chaotic parking we have ever seen and the most depressing terrace, even though the views were stunning. Reaching the highest point of the hike, we could walk to the right and go on our way down, or take a little detour to the left and get to the waterfall again. We had been walking faster than planned so decided to go left, here we found a great spot on a rock in the river and had lunch. A very stale piece of bread with a shit ton of chocolate spread.

The way down was even faster than up, before we knew it we were in the sad village with the chaotic parking lot, and cutting a few corners we soon arrived at the van. Back at the van I wanted to switch my sunglasses for my normal glasses, but somehow one of the glasses had fallen out of the frame. This meant I was going to have to wear my very old, very ugly Harry Potter glasses from now on, until I find somewhere to fix them. We also were super hot and we wanted to swim in the river for a bit. It did however start to rain and there were very weird insects on the bottom of this part of the river (probably in the entire river, but here we could see them, so yuck!). We decided to drive back down and swim in the natural pool again. We figured we could also sleep in the same parking as the first night in the valley.

Upon arrival in the village we saw we couldn’t sleep in the parking lot. The next morning at 6, the parking lot had to be completely empty and we were definitely not planning on waking up that early. We settled on going for a swim, and sleeping next to the tourist office again. It was extremely busy in the natural pool, but we found a spot in the shades and had a refreshing, and very cold, swim to recover from the hike.

We left to go to sleep, and the next morning we are heading to Milan!