Category: Hiking

Sentiero del Centenario

Sentiero del Centenario

It was years ago, the first time I climbed Monte Camicia from Vado di Ferruccio, that I first heard about this famous trail. There was this group of people, wearing harnesses and carrying a rope, that we met on the way, and they were hiking the “Centenario”.

Since then, I always wanted to hike that trail, but I never did. And I never did it mostly for logistic reasons: start and end are more or less 20 km apart, and without two cars, one at the start and one at the end, or bikes, it would be pretty complicated.

Well, this Summer I decided to do it anyway (and I ended up walking half way back also, but thankfully not all the way back to the start thanks to a couple of German tourists that gave me a ride).

It was a beautiful day, and the trail is brilliant. Also, according to Strava, at the time of this writing I have the 5th overall time on the associated segment 🙂

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.

Ortler, and more

Ortler, and more

To be honest, few months ago I didn’t think this would have happened. When the corona crisis began, and Europe closed its internal and external borders, I thought my alpine plans for the summer were no more.

However, I decided to keep training, once again following a plan from Uphill Athlete, for two reasons: the first, training is never wasted time. If nothing happened, I still would have added to my training bank hours upon hours of aerobic training. The second reason to keep training was that, if at some point in the summer I got green light for my alpine trip with NKBV, I would have had no time to start training, so I had to be in good shape already.

And finally in mid June, one month before the trip, we got green light. And after the trip, here I am sharing some videos I made with Suunto, highlighting the three main summits of the trip: Cima Marmotta, Zufallspitze, and the Ortler.

Zugspitze

Zugspitze

Borders inside the European Union are basically open, so decided to travel to Germany to get some fresh air.
And, being in Garmish-Partenkirchen, I decided to climb the Zugspitze (2962 masl), the highest mountain in Germany.

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.

Veluwe traverse

Veluwe traverse

Since at least 2015 I have been thinking about walking in a single push from Rheden to Nunspeet, traversing the whole Veluwe in the South-North direction.
I did a few attempts, all of them ended close to Apeldoorn for a variety of reasons.

Until on the 1st of September 2019, after having watched the TMB on YouTube the day before, I decided it was time for a real attempt.
The weather forecast was good, days still long, I was alone at home and feeling right, so eventually I woke up early on that Sunday morning, took the train from Amsterdam to Rheden, and walked the whole day.

The walk was enjoyable for the most part, I felt pretty good until a bit before kilometer 50, but then hit a metaphorical brick wall, my legs became rubbish, and walking the last 6/7 kilometers was hard.
Also, at that point I could not eat anymore, I believe to have chewed my last Clif Bar for 20 minutes or so.

However, although painfully, I managed to walk the whole way from Rheden to Nunspeet, ending my hike on a sunny bench at the train station.

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.

Mount Kinabalu summit

Mount Kinabalu summit

Got some free time while living in Singapore, and decided to climb Mount Kinabalu.

Always thought my first four thousand meters mountain would have been in the Alps (and last year even attempted to climb Gran Paradiso but failed due to a bailing partner), or at least a glaciated experience. Well, considering I am at the equator it was more of a tropical experience 🙂
Pretty cool, though. Although I prefer to just get to a trail and climb on my own, the logistics there were perfect, and I had nothing to complain.

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.