After spending the evening enjoying Lago Di Braies, we began looking for a campsite, but being in a relatively isolated area, weren't able to find anything with hookups or power, so we found an interesting looking "road" full of switchbacks that looked like it ventured into some pretty incredible mountain peaks.
Just a little insight into our route: We put Google Maps on Satellite View and looked for the most mountainous areas with remote roads with as many switchbacks as possible and then just went there. We tried to avoid highways and tolls and wanted to be as much off of the beaten path as possible, so when we were planning out our day, we'd find the most time-consuming, rough, treacherous roads to get to our destination...after all, it's all about the journey, right? In all honesty, we probably could have hit twice as many places if we'd just taken the fastest route, but that's not how we roll.
We went up the paved road for probably 20 miles, and then, according to Google Maps, the road ended, but that was not the case at all :) It continued on for several more miles on dirt and gradually climbed and got more narrow, and climbed and got more narrow, until we reached the tippy-top of the mountain...surrounded by peaks and meadows and with it's own little stone ruin. It wasn't technically even a road any longer, let alone a campsite, but what are the odds that anybody would find us up there, right? We also figured out, relatively quickly, that NOTHING was open in the area...it's off-season, so restaurants and cafes, lifts, gondolas, even motels, are all closed this time of year. Therefore, we shared half of a bag of potato chips for dinner that night. Having only been provided with a down comforter and not having heating or air conditioning in our camper, I was a little bit concerned that we'd freeze that night...there was still some snow on the ground and we'd climbed up in elevation quite a bit. We ended up being comfy cozy though, and perfectly warm. However, jet lag kicked in and we were up at about 1 am and couldn't fall back to sleep, so we watched a few episodes of Wild Wild Country on Netflix and waited for the sun to come up. Normally, we would just continue driving so as not to waste a lot of time, but we knew we were in a really beautiful spot and wanted to see it in the morning light, so we waited it out.
The next morning, we awoke to heavy clouds, but went for a little stroll around the top of our mountain before hitting the road in search of breakfast. We initially wanted to continue along to the other side and down the mountain but weren't sure if there was anything over there and were on less than half of a tank of fuel so decided against chancing civilization being over there with a gas station, so we turned back down the road we went up on. We found a tiny little ski town with the promise of a cafe opening at 7 am, so we parked and walked around until opening time, only to find that it was not, in fact, opening.
Honestly, I can't even remember what we ended up having for breakfast that day...we may have just had some yogurt and instant coffee that we'd picked up at the market on the first day. Anyway, we decided to make our way to a signature rock formation in the Dolomites - Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Google Maps promised an actual road that went right up to the base of the mountain, so we were excited at the possibility of being about to hike around for a couple of hours and then move on to the next thing. However, we pulled up to a big gate and parking lot 6 miles from the destination. We decided to go for it and hoofed it up the road.
The first mile was relatively flat and paved, so we covered ground quickly. We came to a little toll booth (it's $30 to drive up, but it was closed of course) and then the road went straight up at a 10% grade in a series of switchbacks. Dark clouds were looming on the edge of the mountains all around, but the rain seemed to be holding off, so we were trying to get up there as quickly as possible, but man, that road was steep. There were several patches of snow here and there that we had to get through, slippery and slushy, but not impossible to pass. The views were extraordinary and there were wildflowers and waterfalls around every turn. About 4 miles in, Brian suggested that we just short-cut the switchbacks and climb up the mountain...it would cut a bunch of mileage out of our trek and mix it up a little, so we took the next trail up and climbed on our hands and feet to the next pass. Eventually, we came of a ravine full of deep, icy snow and loose chunks of stone, and Brian chopped away at it to provide footholds for me to follow. It was so slippery and I couldn't really seem to get a good grip with my hands OR my feet. I was essentially hugging the side of the mountain with my entire body, clinging on for dear life. It seemed incredibly steep...I'm not kidding. The fact that we were standing at quite literally a 10% angle from the mountain was so nerve-wracking, and I made the mistake of turning around to look below me and realized that if I slipped, there was absolutely nothing to break my fall and I was a dead girl. I had a little bit of a panic attack until reality kicked in - I can't go back down, so what other option do I have than to just keep going up? I'm sure that Brian would say that I was totally overreacting, but I was terrified...and I've only been really terrified a handful of times in my life, so it was legit. We eventually got out of that mess and back onto dry-ish land for the remainder of the trek. Once it leveled out a bit, I had to just sit and take in the views and catch my breath. Looking down on what we had just climbed up made me realize how incredible of a feat we'd just accomplished and made it all worth it :)
Once we got up to the base of the formations, the clouds had rolled in and pretty much covered the mountain itself. The wind was blowing ice cold at about 50 mph, but we could see a bunch of caves and tunnels from WW1 carved into the rock, and had 270° views of the valleys surrounding. We explored a bit and then decided to head back before the storm officially hit. What took us about 3 hours to get up took 45 minutes to get down. It began to spit rain on the way down, but we made it down before the downpour. Concluding that it wasn't going to let up anytime soon, we decided to hit the road to our next destination: Slovenia.