Description

To the E of us lay the peak of Adula at 3402m, which we would need to cross.

Had we been staying in Olivone we might just have considered an Alpine start and trying to do this in a day.

There is an obvious hut the far side, but from Campra it seemed like a big ask. Walk down the road and paths to Olivone at 890m.

From there a good but steep path through the trees zig zags up to the E and then N, to emerge at the hamlet of Cumpiett, then the track along the E side of the Lago di Caressina.

We did our best not to be put off by the signs just before the lake, suggesting we were heading into an active firing range.

After the lake it is an easy but very beautiful hanging valley that leads you up to the Adula bivi hut, in a fantastic position, with pots, pans, stove and a beautiful view of the setting sun- highly recommended.

We were glad the following day not to have continued, as it was such a lovely place to spend the night, and it is still several hours to the summit of the Adula from there. We had a ridiculous experience that night, as locals had seen our headtorches outside the hut, wrongly thinking we were trying to alert a rescue, and came to do so.

Luckily, I managed to pretend to be asleep while Ben pacified them, assuring them that rescue was not needed! They insisted on seeing passports, so I had to resist the urge to ask them how they would have felt if I’d come into their bedroom at 3am, asking to look at their passports!