High Spirits
Our writer baulks at the Braulio in Bormio to tackle the terrible trio of the Gavia, Mortirolo and Stelvio
The last time I climbed the Passo dello Stelvio was in 2012, the day before the Giro d’Italia passed along the same road. And I had a wretched hangover.
I was staying with some friends in Bormio, at 1225m at the foot of the Stelvio. The night before our date with the Alps’ second-highest mountain pass, we drank one too many Braulio, Bormio’s bitter spirit made from a secret recipe of plants and herbs. While its ingredients may be a mystery, its side-effects are easily predicted. It might as well say on the label: do not climb the Passo dello Stelvio the morning after a Braulio session.
Fast forward to 2018 and the intervening years have added a degree of wisdom, meaning I passed on the Braulio to focus on the fabulous cycling in the Alta Valtellina – a valley in the northern Italian region of Lombardy, just a few hours’ drive from Milan.
Bormio revisited
Prior to my Cycling Plus assignment, I’d already been in Bormio for several days, riding the Haute Route Stelvio, one of the three-day events of the notoriously hard stage races for amateurs. Over the course of the race I rode a total of 220km and 8000m elevation. That included climbing the Stelvio no fewer than three times (twice from Bormio and once from Prato allo Stelvio, Switzerland), on top of two other cycling monuments: the Passo Gavia (2621m) and Passo della Foppa, aka the Mortirolo (1852m with maximum gradients of 20 per cent).
Between these three mountains the history of the Giro d’Italia has been written over the last 70 years. My route for Cycling Plus would encompass all three, though both the Gavia and Mortirolo would be seen from different sides.
When most people were decompressing from the rigours of the Haute Route, relaxing, perhaps in the town’s thermal baths (Bagni Vecchi), there’d be no such luxury for me. For both my quads and my Canyon Ultimate, there was still business to attend to.
At 8am sharp, the local ranger Michele Antonioli – a 5km shorttrack, speed-skating relay silver medallist of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City – was waiting for me outside the Hotel Cristallo, my base camp for the expedition. He was wearing Santini’s black and red customised kit, and looked every inch the former professional athlete, his legs giving testimony to many hours spent in the red zone, both on the ice-skating rink and in the saddle.
It transpired that Michele had also taken part in the Haute Route. I felt relieved, thinking those legs would need some recovery from the hard weekend. When I discovered that he had finished 11th overall in the final classification (I finished 117th), that hope faded.
“Easy today, okay?” I asked him. “Of course, of course,” he answered with a big smile.
The menu of the day was dedicated to foodies and included the Passo Gavia as a starter, the Mortirolo as the main course and the Stelvio as the cherry on top – if we still had room in our stomachs. The only difference from the Haute Route itinerary – a big difference – was that we were planning to climb the Gavia and the Mortirolo from different sides: the Gavia from Bormio (and Santa Caterina Valfurva) and the Mortirolo from Monno in the Val Camonica. Not only were these roads less intimidating and steep than the others we had climbed on the race, but the different paths were enough to keep our minds interested and focused.
The first part of the climb from Bormio to Santa Caterina (1738m) won’t be the highlight of your average day in Valtellina, but it did the trick, getting the body warm and giving me a chance to rid the blood of the lactate, or Braulio, of the day before. Despite misgivings at what he might do to my legs, Michele turned out to be the perfect companion for a recovery ride. When my breath started to get shorter, even on the first and easy ramps of the climb, he politely sat back and kept me company with tales from his skating past.
“The air got thinner and thinner; the otherwise non-stop conversation with Michele got quieter”
Sight seeing
As soon as we left the centre of Santa Caterina the roads narrowed and we started our second part of the ascent inside the forest. A few early hairpins gave us a breather and allowed us to admire the view for the first time. In front we could spot the high-altitude pastures where local farmers bring their herds for summer grazing. The small lodges made of wood and
stone are their main shelter for these months; the constructions easy to spot as they aren’t any trees around them – only large fields where animals could find grass.
The more the roads steepened, the more severe the environment became. The gentle pastures turned to the crude habitat that characterises the Alps above 2000m. The high trees were replaced by low vegetation. The snow left from the winter was still accumulated on the steep sides of the kerbs and its reflection dazzled. The air got thinner and thinner; the otherwise non-stop conversation with Michele got quieter. “This is the hardest part of the climb,” he said, about 5km from the top, “but it doesn’t last long.”
While my antenna twitches when somebody tells me that the “hard part is almost over” Michele proved to be a man of his word. Soon we were having much deserved cappuccino and cheesecake at the top of the Gavia.
The Rifugio Bonetta, at 2600m, where we stopped for our first coffee after almost two hours of climbing, offers both a panoramic view of the Lago Bianco (White Lake) and a warm shelter from the cold temperatures. Even in the summer and around midday, the temperature can be closer to zero than 20, particularly when the sky starts to cloud. The Rifugio – open from May until October – works both as a café and a restaurant, but it also has rooms for those who want to climb even higher (mainly hikers and climbers).
The descent from the Gavia towards Ponte di Legno (1258m in the Val Camonica) is legendary. This is where the American Andy Hampsten – during an epic stage of the 1988 Giro – attacked under snow and -4°C at the top of the Gavia to win the overall Giro.
We climbed the same side during stage two of the Haute Route, which finished at the top of the Gavia. Because of the ravages of that day,