A week from today Marilyn and I will be hiking in the Dolomites.  Four nights, five days, hut to hut on the Alta Via 1. We’re way excited and hope our preparations will be enough. We’ll see. To prepare, Marilyn and I have been hiking twice a week for about 6 weeks. Which has been plenty for our old knees.

               Here’s the stats:  12 hikes, 89.94 miles, 27,400 ft ascending and 41 hours, 18 minutes, 54 seconds of moving time. The last hike was Dog Mountain Double Loop of 7.63 miles and 3,599 ft ascending and descending.  We have tried to mimic the hikes we’ll encounter.  Four to six hours hiking and ascending and then descending 3,000 to 4,000 ft each day.  Of course, we haven’t been able to duplicate the altitude, but we exercised heavily in Mammoth Mountain a few years ago and think we’ll be OK.

               Except for footwear, our equipment is the same we used for our Tour du Mont Blanc trip.  This time we’ve abandoned the trusty classic leather hiking boots for “Fast Packers”. These boots are more robust than trail runners but weigh a pound less.  I wrote a blog on hiking sticks when we did the Tour du Mont Blanc and it remains relevant.  Check it out.

               We’re not worried about the food.  It’s Italy already.  We’ll let you know.

               Bear with us on the blog and remember it can be accessed at:  ataleoftwohikers.net.

               Attached are a couple of photos. The one of me is on Dog Mountain and the one of Marilyn is on the Cool Creek to Devils Peak hike.