A fairly gentle walk to break us in. We went out with Helen, the Thomson's walking guide for the Val di Fassa; this takes in 2 villages really, Campitello and Canazei which are just over a mile apart. One aim of going with Helen was to get some local knowledge. This was highly successful; what we learned was;

We caught the bus down the valley to Pozza di Fassa. We then had to walk through the town to access he double ski lift to the top, getting a wonderful view of a hunting kestrel from the second. The sun was bright and the red in its wings really shone.

The ridge isn't a long or difficult walk (although the walks booklet has it down as one scary face - a factor for timid walkers) but it did give wonderful views of the surrounding mountains. There are four main groups of hills.

You can see these, not only in the photos above but in the subsequent days because they do dominate the walking all around.

The other recurrent theme of the holiday was the number and variety of the mountain plants. We saw these up on the ridge and continued to be amazed by them day after day. We'd had the impression that the Dolomites were arid and barren. Well the highest tops might be but the hills at the top of the ski lifts (c2000-2500 metres) are very green and lovely walking. It's just a shame that we aren't better at plant recognition.

We stopped at the cafe (rifugio) by the ski lift down for a while and chatted to other people in the group. There isn't a large concentration of British staying in the valley so it was nice to talk to other folk. However Beryl left her ski pole her - she remembered this on the way down the ski lift so we had to go back and get it, leaving the rest of the group. The walk had taken us higher up the valley than Campitello so we had a walk down the valley (in increasing rain) to finish the day.