On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BigJimSlade
A continuation of yesterday’s post following our hike through the Puez-Odle altopiano. This is at the east end of Val Gardena.
Looking down Vallunga, towards Selva in Val Gardena. We would walk down this, ahem, long valley after lunch.
Speaking of lunch! This is Refugio Puez. I had the goulash – lots of paprika! We were pretty beat, so we were damn glad to be here.
And now we head down into the valley. There was much scree to negotiate. It took a lot out of us! My foot slipped on a rock just as a trail worker was coming up – he pointed at my feet and said, “schlechte Schuhe! schlechte Schuhe!” (Bad shoes!) I guess he could’ve taken my slipping on the rocks as an insult to the job he had done. I got a laugh out of that and now my wife and I use that phrase all the time :-)
Down in the valley, rolling easy now, enjoying the meadow and the cows. Quite a few families with young kids were walking in the valley, which is easily accessed from the town at the end of it.
OK, let’s get back to the flowers! It can be challenging to take pictures of flowers that are only a couple millimeters wide.
This pile cracked me up . There are soooo many rocks and that high landscape is so inhospitable, but this was so dense and green. It looked like it could’ve inched its way around.
Like I’ve said before, I like flowers growing in the rock cracks.
This is one of my favorites. It is rare to get an angle on a flower that’s only an inch off the ground that gives you blue sky behind it. And these flowers in particular and kinda rare, too, though I got like 20 pictures of them on this trip – I lucked out!
Barbara
Really nice! What a great trip.
sab
This series has been amazing. I thought only China had such gravity defying sticking up straight up into the air mountains.
sab
@sab: Also too those lovely flowers in those huge mountains.
nym
@sab:
This sort of landscape is common in high latitude and in some high altitude regions. This is a classic glacially carved landscape after the glaciers have retreated. The tell is the presence of the U-shaped valleys (among other things). Liquid water erosion typically yields more V-shaped valleys (and hence less steep side walls).
OzarkHillbilly
Beautiful pics of a beautiful place.
Wag
Love the moss blob!
susanna
I like the starkness you captured, inviting and visually captivating. Thank you for all the photos of this area, of which I wasn’t familiar beforehand.
MelissaM
So what kind of shoes were you wearing? If I’m going to daydream about a trip here, let me daydream in the proper gear.
The flower shots are all really lovely. I wish we could get some names for the flowers, because I’m thinking they may be lovely as well.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Good Morning. Thanks for more mountain flower and scenery Pictures. Today’s flowers are
Pink flowers on the cushion plant (a.k.a. “a Bun”) is Moss Campion (Silene acaulis) with a circumpolar distribution this is commonly seen in western North America too. One of my favs. I have lost of pics of this from the Rockies.
Green cushion plant with one white flower is hard to tell. I think maybe it’s a sandwort species (Minuartia or Arenaria species)
Pinkinsh flowers with 4 petals (mostly) is a cress, either a rock cress or a bittercress (Cardaminopsis or Cardamine sp.). I like that you can’t see the leaves in the as that makes it look snuggled in, but I’d need to see the leaves to have a chance to ID it.
The wonderful blue trumpet is a Gentian, (Gentiana clusii from the G. acaulis group. ) Some of these are actually growable without too much trouble in a trough/planter in gardens and make spring really special when they bloom. About 25 or 30 years ago I took the top prize (sort of a best of all the Blue Ribbons Award) at the Philly Flower Show in the individual class with a pot of Gentiana acaulis with 4 flowers in full bloom!
SkyBluePink
Magnificent place captured by wonderful photos!
Grumpy Old Railroader
Breathtaking
WaterGirl
I am loving this whole series. I have to say that the “bad shoes” picture is beautiful but also somewhat terrifying. I LOVE all the flowers tucked into the rocks.
I love “bad shoes, bad shoes!” that I am going to have to find a way to work into my day-to-day life.
Mo MacArbie
Fall on your face in those bad shoes
mvr
When I hike I prefer schlechte Schuhe.
BigJimSlade
@MelissaM: I was wearing these The North Face Ultra 111 WP Trail-Running Shoes. They’re fine (and I have some currex runpro insoles in them for more support), but maybe beefier things would be better on a mile of loose-ish rocks. I wear them on day hikes every weekend.
BigJimSlade
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): Thanks again for flower IDs and info!
BigJimSlade
@WaterGirl: Every time we slip or stumble a little bit on the trail we now say, “schlechte Schuhe” and have a little laugh.
way2blue
Scree on downhill trails. Ugh. I’m okay going uphill, but downhill I need to keep telling myself to lean forward. These Dolomites are glorious! Thanks again for sharing.
RaflW
Gorgeous!
I hope to get back to Italy some day. We have dear friends who live in Florence. I believe they ski in the Dolomites some winters. Though most winters they go to smaller areas much closer like in the Pistoia mountains.
StringOnAStick
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): Interesting about your spring blooming gentians; the wild native ones I’ve seen in CO were a sign that summer in the high country was ready to turn to fall, though the ones in our yard bloomed midsummer. They are one of my favourite flowers, especially the alpine one there with a tiny plant but a 2″ long flower of off white with purple speckled dots. I’m hoping to get some to grow this year at our new home in central Oregon.
km
Gorgeous! Now I very much want to go hiking there – think I’ll go order that guidebook you mentioned.
BigJimSlade
@km: That, together with the AllTrails app works well. Also, we haven’t gone for any of the via ferrata stuff, but if you want more adventurous outings, they’re there!
J R in WV
Balloon Juice is so wonderful. On the Road is unique to our little John Cole created space, and no sooner does one commenter beg for names of the alpine flowers than another commenter provides IDs for many of those beautiful flowers.
And the pictures this week are so amazing, and of such amazing terrain. Thanks so much for putting together these photo sets and getting them submitted to WaterGirl. I know exactly how much work it is to get sets of photos to look the way you want, organized, edited, with text descriptions to go with. Thank you !!