Passo Fedaia Out-and-Back

June 17, 2022

In my overly optimistic plan for today, I had a circuit over Passo Fedaia, through Canazei, and back over Passo Pordoi. Neither of us felt a particular need to do that, especially not me. So the new plan was to ride through the Serrai di Sottoguda gorge and on to Passo Fedaia (or not).

We got to the village of Sottoguda to discover that “following the exceptional weather events of October 2018, the access to the gorge is waiting to be restored.” Why didn’t we know that? Although I don’t think we were the only ones; there is no indication of this forty-four-month closure on the signs directing visitors to the site, including the one at the highway intersection outside our hotel. The first closure sign is at the turnoff into the village of Sottoguda.

There are several artisan shops in Sottoguda; presumably one (or more) sells metal art.

Some of the metal art is pretty impressive.

We hiked our bikes up through the village back to SP 641 and carried on. The climb was steep here and we hadn’t even gotten to the really steep part yet, after Malga Ciapela. But somehow I made it all the way (with a few breaks).

The Giro d’Italia must have come through here. Al took photos of some of the road graffiti while I concentrated on riding.

We both liked this one but didn’t believe the promise!

We rode around the reservoir at the top and then it was a brake-burning descent. Al’s brakes have been screeching very loudly the past couple of days and I could easily tell where he was by the noise. (He cleaned the rotors and installed new brake pads after today’s ride.) I think mine will make it to the end of the tour. There are only 4 riding days left and only one or two involve a lot of descending (depending on the route I do tomorrow).

The reservoir at the top has a dam at each end. This is looking back the way we came from the top of the other dam.

Looking northwest. I liked the different rock colours. The flat black one on the left is Crepa Neigra, while the pointy one next to it is Spiz de Soforcela. Great names!

Looking back down before starting the descent.

After a pizza and radler stop in Bosco Verde, we took a detour through Sorarù, on the other side of the river that had caused the damage in 2018. We had hoped to connect to the unpaved cycle path along the right bank of the Cordevole River and return across the pedestrian/cyclist bridge I photographed yesterday, but part of the path was closed. Luckily, this did not require backtracking up (way up) to the highway as there was another bridge where the path was barricaded.

New bridge to Sorarù. A bit downstream we passed where the old one had been.

All in all, a grand day out.

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Today's ride: 33 km (20 miles)
Total: 2,031 km (1,261 miles)

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Rachael AndersonWhat a beautiful ride!
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2 years ago