Todeschi's path

Trail marker

Chair lift

The holidays, short but intense, is finished already since one week, but only now i finish preparing this post, both because of post-vacation blues and because i spent some time writing the Javascript code that, from now on, allows me to insert a GoogleMap frame with the track recorded by my GPS, a good companion for our excursions in the mountains.
The Senter de' Todeschi ("Path of the Germans", in the local dialect) is so named because it was marked by the Austrians and Germans during World War I.

After parking the car at Pejo Terme, we caught the lifts to reach Doss de' Cembri refuge.
The first half of those lifts is a safe closed cableway.
The second half instead, scary for anybody like me that suffer from dizzy spells, is an open chair lift. Although there is no restriction for dogs, this last half can be made with your best friend only if he/she is so small you can hold close on your lap.

Bridge on torrent Taviela

Let's say that to me it was a particulary "educational" experience, with Mr. Bentley a little fussy on my knees (who intelligibly wasn't feeling very safe), and with the fall that, i was certain, would have happened for some accident.
When we arrived, unbelievably unscathed, next to the refuge, the welcome came from a herd of goats, which not particularily smart-looking was interpreted as an outrage by Mr. Bentley who tried in vain to drive them away barking.

The excursion begins climbing a comfortable white road for some tenth of meters, coasting a torrent, till a ford next to a little dam. The real path begins after the ford.
The route is level, without big difficulties, but it is very scenic because the entire Pejo valley can be seen from the southern side of Crozzi Taviela mountains.
After a while the path crosses the Taviela river on an unstable little bridge, made out of metal cables on which there is a footbridge made out of wooden boards. The only point in which some attention must be paid is a place that can be crossed pointing your feet on a trunk attached to a leaning rock, holding on to a metal cable a little over.
A little after that point there is a fork with another path that allows to go back to Pejo Terme by foot. We prefered to return the way we came, stopping at the bridgewalk for a snack with bread, cheese and fruits that we had in the backpack.

The distance we made is only the first part of the Todeschi path, that follows long after the fork. The altitude is always between 2300 and 2500 metres and we made it, back and forth, about five hours. Kompass map n. 648.

Here the GPS track of the excursion.
A: the refuge Doss di Cembri, B: the little bridge on the river. From A to C the chair lift, from C to D the cableway.