Today is the final Messner Mountain Museum for us. When we were first planning this trip we were getting slightly overwhelmed with potential routes to take through the Italian Alps. So many places to go and so many possible route iterations! When we found out about the MMM’s and saw where they were, we hit on the idea of using these as key waypoints for our time in the Dolomites and South Tirol and we think it’s worked out pretty well.
The last two, Juval and now Ortler were particularly well situated to set us up for the final ‘Alps’ leg.
Although we’ve had great weather over the last week, coinciding with our decision to bail on the Alpe di Siusi, the forecast for the next few days was looking a little dicey. YR.no was predicting a little rain mid morning and then clearing up. This was looking good for us as the Ortles museum didn’t open until 2 pm and it looked to be about a 2 hour cycle (~10 km and 700 m climb), meaning that a noon departure would look good.
We had a great breakfast, I caught up on the journal and ….. the weather deteriorated. We had scoped out that there was a local bus that ran every 2 hours up to Solda where MMM Ortles is, and by the time noon rolled around it was decided that the bikes would stay in the dry garage and we’d take the bus.
This turned out to be a great decision. The bus ride was great, the road was very interesting …. steep, many hairpin’s and oh so eerie with the fog and rain all.the.way.up.
The bus ride was only about 20 minutes so we got to Solda around 12:30 and the rain was coming down steadily. We figured we’d grab some lunch while we waited for the museum to open.
Well, Solda, which is a pretty good sized high end ski resort, made Corvara look like Times Square at New Years. While Corvara was opening up on 6th June, everything here was shut tight until 19th June or later! We did find ONE open cafe that sat 8 people, and we were patrons 5 and 6. Coffee and strudel procured, we whiled away the time until the MMM opened.
So, the final MMM for us. Ortles is mainly set out as an art gallery celebrating glaciers and ice, along with some equipment and gear that Messner used on his 1989-90 ski across Antarctica with Arved Fuchs (just the two of them, pulling sleds).
The museum itself is architecturally very interesting. In a similar fashion to Crones in Bruneck, the structure is sunken into the ground and with irregular skylight opening, is meant to evoke being in a crevasse. It actually works! Since it was also a rainy Monday, there were only a handful of other people there, and the relative isolation gave it a high mountain glacial feel, to the extent possible inside a building.
I’ll let the pics speak for themselves, but as a wrap for the 5 of the 6 MMM’s that we visited, we were quite happy that we incorporated this theme into our tour.
Who needs pictures to hang on the wall? I’m sure every other CB’er has seen this and done this before.
Kirsten KaarsooTo Rachael AndersonSometimes we make a good decision. This was an excellent decision as we would not have enjoyed the museum after the challenging ride in the rain. Reply to this comment 1 week ago
Nice bus ride up to Solda (elevation 1890 m) and into the rain. The only activity going on that we could see was renovations / repairs at a number of the (closed) hotels and apartments
Kirsten KaarsooTo Gregory GarceauGlad you agree. This idea for the photo goes back to a ski trip with a friend who was always trying to set up ‘Wes Anderson shots’. At that point I was not really aware of his work. We are glad you ‘got it’. Reply to this comment 1 week ago
We found the only open cafe, a very small place in the Die Kleine Post Hotel (that appeared to be going under some refurbishment). Interesting observation while we were here. We saw other hotels called Alt Post (Old Post), Die Post (The Post), and Chalet Post. If you’re taking a taxi here you’d better be specific
Rachael AndersonI’m glad you found a place to have coffee and a snack! We’ve had several encounters in the past where we couldn’t find any place to get food. I now always carry some snacks! Reply to this comment 1 week ago
As noted, a large part of this museum is devoted to art that captures snow and ice. This one really does it for me, especially if you’ve ever ski toured on a large icefield in poor (or no) light conditions.
…. And the sleds they pulled. Totally self contained for 92 days, although they did go to the South Pole research station and were likely resupplied there. So maybe ONLY 46 days or so of supplies to tote along.
Both K and I thought this was really cool. The two blocks show K2, 8611 m (big block) in the Himalayas and Königsspitze, 3851 m (small block) to relative scale. This really points out just how large the Himalayan mountains, and as an mid point reference, the Andes, are to the Alps (and for that matter the Rockies where we live). Sea level (the lower arrow) is marked on each block
1 week ago