20 ALPE | Summer
The Val Ciamin valley, one of the most beautiful valleys of the Dolomites.
Mountain tales The Rifugio Bergamo mountain hut offers shelter to the climbers, mountaineers and hikers who are out touring the breathtaking mountain landscape around the famous Catinaccio. The hut is run by Hansjörg and Margot – and there’s no room there for stress.
K Known as the Grasleitenhütte in German, the Rifugio Bergamo took its original name from the German Leite - a steep mountain slope used as pasture land for sheep and goats. Located at 2,165 m in the midst of the rocky slopes directly below the Torre del Principe, the Cima di Mezzo del Principe and the Cima di Valbona, the hut was built by the Leipzig section of the German-Austrian Alpine Association and was inaugurated in 9 September 1887. It was designed by architect Hugo Licht, who died in 1923 and was also commissioned to plan the new town hall in Leipzig. Initially, the hut was not managed on-premises, and climbers picked up the key to its doors down in the valley. The location for the hut was suggested by famed Tyrolean mountaineer Johann Santner, who opened the Santner Pass - later named for him - in 1878 together with
mountaineer Alois Villgrattner from Tires. Santner also prompted the local council of Tires to provide the land for the hut free of charge, and to sell the wood to build it at an affordable price. The limestone was burned at the Buco dell’Orso and then hauled up the mountains to build the hut, opening the Catinaccio area of the Val Ciamin in the process. On completion of the two extensions in 1897/98 and 1909/10, the Rifugio Bergamo was upgraded from a self-catering style bothy to a refuge hut with guest room, dining room, bedrooms and mattress dorms. At this time, from the turn of the century to the First World War, there were countless first ascents in the Catinaccio area, and the Rifugio Bergamo was used as a set-off point for climbing tours on the Croda and »
Text: Katja Sanin Photo: Helmuth Rier
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the Cima di Valbona by local mountaineers such as Franz Schroffenegger and Franz Wenter, and also international climbing greats including Hans Dülfer. After the First World War, when South Tyrol was handed over to Italy, the hut was expropriated by the Italian state and handed over to the Bergamo section of the Italian Alpine Association CAI (Club
South Tyrolean hospitality at Margot and Hansjörg’s Rifugio Bergamo.
Alpino Italiano). It was at this time that the hut came by its Italian title of the Rifugio Bergamo. Alongside 24 other huts in South Tyrol which had been expropriated by Italy, the Rifugio Bergamo became the property of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano in 1999. Since 2015, decisions regarding leases, tenancy administration and reconstruction are overseen by a joint committee of the South Tyrolean government, South Tyrol Alpine Association and the CAI. The Rifugio Bergamo has always been run by tenants from Tires. It has retained its present-day shape and size since 1910; the panelling and furnishings in the guest room and dining room, both staircases to the bedrooms and storehouses and the panelling on the ground floor and both upper floors also date back to this period. Both of the cast-iron, cylindrical ovens, still in perfect working order, come from the two previous buildings, and guests continue to dry their sweat-soaked t-shirts around it to this day.
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Mountain refuge. Even today, the Rifugio Bergamo is still seen as something of a living room for climbers and mountaineers. It is one of the bestloved of all the mountain huts, and not only among natives of Tires. The host of the hut is a climber himself, and climbing has seen a period of revival within its walls over the past few years. Tires is a decidedly mountaineering village and has always been the birthplace of outstanding climbers. In
the last few decades a new generation of climbers have come of age and headed out into the lands of the Catinaccio on their first tours. “It’s nice to look out on the climbers from the terrace, serve them a refreshing glass of juice or a beer, and hear them go over the technical ins-and-outs as they discuss their route for the umpteenth time,” says the landlady. And it’s not just climbers and mountaineers who come to the Rifugio Bergamo; last summer, for example, a young woman booked a weekend here to simply switch off and forget about work for a while. She enjoyed her stay at the hut so much that she spent her whole week’s holiday at the hut rather than the one night which she had originally planned. Today, the main clientele at the hut consists of holidaymakers and leisure-time sports enthusiasts who call in at the Rifugio Bergamo as they make their way through the Val Ciamin. In the 1960s, however, the hut was the second home for the young mountain enthusiasts from the village »
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through the Val Ciamin Valley; from Compaccio on the Alpe di Siusi along trail no. 2 via the Panorama, Punta d’Oro, the Forcella dei Denti di Terra Rossa ridge, the Rifugio Alpe di Tires hut and the Molignon Pass in around four hours, and from Saltria along trail no. 8 to the Tirler Hotel and along the forest road to the Dialer Hotel, past the Rifugio Alpe di Tires hut and the Molignon pass, also in around four hours.
Mountaineers are really fascinated by the originality of the Val Ciamin valley.
of Tires itself. At that time, the young folk had no money and a great deal fewer opportunities than the youth of today. During those politically turbulent times, one of the young students and climber also had contact with the South Tyrol activists, and was familiar with the scene. In the months following the “Night of Fire” on 11 June 1961 when 37 electricity pylons were blown up in the lands around Bolzano, the Italian Carabinieri carried out a wave of arrests. He felt safe at the Rifugio Bergamo, where he was cared for and mothered by “Proder Rosl,” as the landlady at the time, Rosa Weißenegger, was affectionately known. The “Night of Fire” was the pinnacle of the years of bombing in South Tyrol and brought the “South Tyrol problem”, with its political tension between the German and Italian speaking groups, to the headlines of the international press.
The hut through the years. The Rifugio Bergamo is accessible from the Malga Ciamin restaurant in Tires in around two and a half hours
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Since 2009, the hut has been run by Tires native Hansjörg Resch and his young family. “I’m actually a builder by trade, but with all the bureaucracy that we tradesmen have to deal with nowadays, I talked over the prospect of running a mountain hut together with my wife Margot, who loves the mountains as much as I do myself. When we heard that Karl and Agatha Ladstätter weren’t planning to carry on any longer, we decided to put our names forward,” says the landlord, who at the time had a daughter of just nine months old and a second child on the way. This summer, the Resch family will be heading into their tenth season at the Rifugio Bergamo, which they run in person from the beginning of June to the beginning of October. With their skills in building and graphic design, the young couple have made their own mark on the hut over the last ten years. First and foremost, it has been modernised through and through, from the WCs, showers and bathrooms, the windows and the outer walls through to the mattresses and the cold storage room. Margot has designed a new logo which now adorns the menus and the new bedlinen and creates a cosy atmosphere within the hut, which has never lost its essence as a mountain refuge. “The nice thing about running a mountain hut is that every day is different. For four months you don’t have a spare minute, but we’ve got used to hut life with our colleagues and our guests, and enjoy our summers in the mountains,” says Margot, adding: “There are so many different people who come here, but they all have one thing in common – love of the mountains and nature. Naturally, we try to offer our guests a certain level of comfort and to satisfy their requests, but a refuge hut can’t be confused with a hotel. Sometimes guests might want their own table, but it’s not possible due to the lack of room. However, the initial scepticism and shyness of the guests almost always gives way to good cheer as soon as they start speaking to the other people at the table about where they come from and share
their hiking routes and experiences, strangers no more,” says the landlady.
A typical day at a mountain refuge hut. Most guests stay for one night and set off on their hut or long-distance hiking tour the following day. The hosts’ day begins at 5.15 am when they prepare breakfast, which is served to guests from 6.30 to 9 am. All guests are up and off by 10 at the latest and then it’s time to clean the rooms and dorms, dust and clean the guest room and get the paperwork done. The cook begins his preparations in the kitchen and at around 11 am, before the first guests arrive, Hansl and Margot sit out in the sun on the terrace with their colleagues and have coffee together. All day long it’s all systems go to a greater or lesser extent depending on the weather, and dinner is served at 6.30 pm. The hosts and staff have dinner at around 8 pm, the breakfast tables are laid for the next day, and the peace of the mountains reigns throughout the hut at 10 pm.
nings of dance, music, cards and storytelling, even at these isolated heights the hut is always bustling with life. Margot had one wish to celebrate her fist anniversary as landlady of the hut: a party. And this summer the South Tyrolean band “Queen Laurin” will be coming to the hut for the tenth time to play their legendary blues evening at the Rifugio Bergamo. “For us musicians it’s a job and a half to organise this kind of concert evening, what with transporting our instruments here and the final stretch on foot, but the atmosphere is incredible,
Two or three mornings a week Hansl heads to the village to stock up on supplies of fresh goods such as bread and vegetables. He ensures that stocks are replenished and that all the facilities - the goods cable car, the generator and the cold store - are in good working order. In the past, everything was brought to the hut by mules and Haflinger horses. In the 1960s, the freight cable car was built, and the hut landlords can drive there by jeep. The last stretch up to the hut is his training route almost every day and he manages it in just 30 minutes. The Ciamin Valley is classed as one of the most beautiful valleys of the Dolomites and is a popular training route with mountain runners. A good many locals love the sociable, hospitable atmosphere at the Rifugio Bergamo and head there regularly on their days off or after a day’s work to keep in shape. Two sisters who are friends of the hosts came up with the idea of running a sort of contest on who comes to the hut most over the course of the season, and a board has been hung up on the wall where stalwarts’ visits to the hut are chalked up. Last year, the record went to Georg Jocher from the Oltradige at 33 times, followed by Filippo Pittscheider and Georg Psenner, both from Tires. The hosts also like to come up with innovative schemes: with their Grasleiten Run and eve-
as everybody is “ensnared” in the hut and enjoy the evening in company,” says the singer, Klaus Gummerer, who likes to oil his deep voice with whisky and, together with two other full-blooded musicians, raises the roof of the guest room at the Rifugio Bergamo with the very best of blues one night a year. «
Living and working in the mountains is exhausting, but gives you a great level of contentment.
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