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Gartner Sattel

dm729. 09. 2013 19:32:45

With a slight delay, I'm posting another great Saturday tour in the Carnic Alps. With my buddy, we start the tour in Ugovizza (Ukvah). We go along the bike path to Pontebba (Tablje), where we turn right towards Nassfeld Pass (Mokrine). At the pass, just before the road starts descending to the Austrian side, we still turn right uphill on asphalt and after less than a km turn right again onto a gravel path that takes us to the highest point of the tour, Gartner Sattel 1863m, where there's also the top station of the quad chairlift from the pass. We take a short break then turn into the neighboring valley where there's a nice winding gravel road on the descent. We pass by an artificial lake and the Garnitzen alpine pasture and join path no.484. We descend another approx. 3km, where we turn right across the Garnitzenbach stream and start climbing towards Moderndorfer alpine pasture. At the pasture, there's a short steep descent and soon after 2km ascent towards Moderndorfer saddle, where path no.403 joins. Again, a kilometer ascent to Kersnitzen saddle and then descent to the fairy-tale Egger alpine pasture, where we reach the asphalted road coming from Hermagor (Šmohor). Then a flat section across the plateau past Lake Egger to another wonderful Dellacher alpine pasture, where at the junction we turn right uphill (path no.403) towards Poludniger alpine pasture, but we turn midway onto gravel path no.403, where on the descent we reach Kesenwald bach stream, cross it, and then the last 3 kilometer ascent to Forcello Fontano freddo, which is on the border between Austria and Italy. From there, a steep 10 km descent into Ugovizza valley and then to the village of the same name, where after good 71 kilometers our tour ends. I'd add that the tour is quite demanding as there's a lot of up-down, and also orientationally challenging since without some GPS or a good map (TABACCO 018) the tour would be hard to execute as there are many forest paths that cross each other.