| georgia14. 07. 2024 16:18:40 |
Exploring South Tyrol the first week of July; our base was the village Plaus in the Vinschgau/Val Venosta valley near the town of Merano. This is officially a bilingual region, but German strongly predominates, the whole week we didn't meet any Slovenian. They obviously just travel through or turn to the Dolomites earlier. Too bad, as it's really a tourist-developed and very organized holiday destination, surrounded by 2- and 3-thousanders, waterfalls, lakes, castles, orchards, vineyards, mountain farms, interesting side valleys, small towns and cycling connections and train along the whole valley, ...
I'd like to share with you impressions from our hike to the wonderful mountain lakes Spronser Seen/Laghi di Sopranes: Vellau - cable car to Leiteralm (1522 m) - Hochganghaus (1839 m) - Hochgangsharte (2455 m) - lakes - Malga Oberkaser (2134 m) - Taufensharte - Leiteralm - cable car. About the lakes (10 in total, all above 2000 m) on this forum I found only one video, no report yet, for trip preparation I used notes from foreign sites, since there are several different starting points and paths to this area.
Unforgettable hike in magnificent environment, pure walking about 6 hours with some 1000 elevation gain, of course we needed more with all the photographing and one longer break on the pasture. Adrenaline already from the ride through tree crowns with the unique cable car, standing in the basket, definitely not for the vertiginous. From the pasture a nice path through the forest and over the bridge to the next pasture, where the real ascent starts.
The path is mostly nicely graded, the last part to the saddle, about half an hour, is exposed, we can hold onto the fixed chains if needed. On the saddle we finally spot the first lake and are surprised by how much snow there still is. The path ahead is also trampled in the snow, we descend between lakes, waterfalls, babbling streams, alpine bells, gentians, ... The landscape reminds me somehow of Iceland with water everywhere, greenery, dark rocks and snow. Amid all these beauties lies the welcoming hut on the Oberkaser pasture, where we can refuel and also overnight, as I noticed. Really nicely arranged! Beer 5.80, goulash with bread dumplings 17 euros (example).
We continue the path to round the tour, the last short but strenuous ascent to the saddle awaits us, we meet a marmot and goats, then steeply down the steps back to the cable car, this last part drained me, as we hurried to catch the last ride to the valley, which is already at 17.30 (later in season apparently at 18h). The whole tour mostly on rocky steps or snowfields (early July), without nasty scree and debris. The weather served us too, despite clouds we had wonderful views, the occasional sun revived the colors of the landscape, but didn't scorch us, as most of the path is open.
We managed to catch the cable car and the downhill ride is even more adrenaline-packed than the uphill one!  If our Tango uphill still trembled, downhill he already enjoyed the views and smells. Unforgettable! Ticket for this unique ride up and down is 13 euros per person, for the dog 6 euros. I recommend the early ride (starts at 8h), so that we can then enjoy the tour in peace and not rush for that last basket. 
The whole day in the hills we heard German, we met only a couple of Slavs and no Slovenians, there were no excessive crowds due to the length and difficulty of the tour (again, start of season).
On the other days we saw nearby and distant sights; I recommend visiting Merano, which has a unique Mediterranean climate amid mountains (climatic spa of Austro-Hungarian nobility), the famous Parcines/Partschins waterfall with 97 meters (nice shady footpath by the water leads from P for Texelbahn, after 1h ascent it reaches the waterfall, no entrance/parking fee), Lake Resia, the famous Stelvio pass and walk above it admiring the three-thousanders (P free), ... and of course top homemade ice cream in any place, a scoop is cheaper than the Slovenian one (1.50 to 1.80)! We'll definitely return to South Tyrol. 
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