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| Corno Grande, Via Normale |
It looks tranquil and lonely from the photo above, but a hike up the Corno Grande on a beautiful Sunday in October is not an ascendant outing that I will ever do again. The craggy summit was absolutely mobbed with people, so much so that I had to sit and wait, sometimes for tens of minutes at a time, just to move a few meters. In all the times that I've hiked in Italy, I can count the number of other hikers that I've encountered on the fingers of one hand. On the Corno, I lost track once I hit several hundred.
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| View to the northest from the Corno Grande shoulder |
In 2012, K and I made the drive up to the Campo Imperatore hotel/observatory complex from Sulmona with the intent of hiking the Corno Grande - the highest peak in central Italy. That sunny day was deceptive as gale force winds forced us to turn around in mid-hike. This time, I monitored both temperature, precipitation
and wind speed, and knew that the day would be perfect. So too, apparently, did every Italian peakbagger. There are two main approaches to the Corno Grande.
Via Normale loops around the summit and affords a more moderate, though still steep, approach from the north. Alternatively,
Via Direttissima, the "most direct way," takes you right up the face. I chose the former, thinking it might be less crowded. Wrong.
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| Panorama from Corno Grande |
Despite the views, it wasn't a very enjoyable hike and I sought to get up and back as quickly as possible. I even had to skip out on making it to the true summit because of a backlog of hikers crowding the cone. I didn't have the patience to wait since K was back at the trail head. As it turns out, making quick time was the best thing to do. Our whole plan was predicated on the fact that she could spend the three hours hanging out in the Campo Imperatore hotel/cafe to relax, knit, have
biscotti and
espressi, and use the bathroom when needed. But the hotel and cafe were both closed on an absolutely gorgeous autumn Sunday with literally thousands of potential customers milling about...
Italy.
Peak: Corno Grande
Elevation: 2,912 meters (9,554 feet); Gain 5,500 feet
Distance: 7.7 miles (round trip); up and back/partial loop
Conditions: Sunny, 55 degrees F
