The Vajont Dam towers over Longarone (not my photo)
A couple years ago I was watching a show about Engineering Disasters that did a long, detailed segment on the Vajont Dam disaster in Italy. The dam was completed in 1960, and at a height of nearly 900 feet above the valley floor it was, at the time, the highest thin-arch dam in the world. Unfortunately, to make a long story short, they may have known a lot about engineering dams at the time but they didn't know enough about geology. In the middle of the night of October 9th, 1963 an enormous section of mountain (about 350 million cubic yards) on the left bank slid into the reservoir, displacing about 30 million cubic metres of water. A wave of water rose up the right bank destroying the village of Caso, 850 feet above the level of the lake, before over-topping the dam and crashing down nearly 1600 feet below and onto the villages of Longarone, Pirago, and others. It's estimated that a total of 2500 lives were lost.
For more detailed info:
http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/vaiont-vajont-landslide-of-1963.html
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=373
What's incredible is that the dam is still standing today. The disaster only chipped away a small section of the top of the dam, so it appears nearly perfect as it looms over the rebuilt town of Longarone. In preparing for this trip I was excited to see that Longarone is only an hour or so south of Arabba, and would make a great sidetrip. Even if no one else was interested in joining me I was going to check this out. I was pleased to find out that the other guys wanted to see it, although none of them had heard of it.
I was awakened by the 7am church bells. If you miss them at 7 you'll get another chance at 7:15, then at 7:30, and so on - 9pm is the final bell. We had another way-too-filling breakfast (where Frank announced the location of the mystery fridge) and walked out to the sunshine to get the bikes ready for another perfect day.
I had laid out a route to the dam that included a named pass, Passo Staulanza, and continuing as the road turned into SP251. Our ride to the start of Staulanza was marred by an abundance of truck traffic, but that thinned out as we turned onto the pass proper. As fun as Staulanza was, and it was a very twisty if not particularly scenic pass, it was the rest of SP251 that impressed me. Miles and miles (and miles) of twisty pavement, with a rock face on your left and a dropoff (with guardrail) to your right. Try to imagine the best part of Hawk's Nest in NJ, but extend it by 10 or 15 miles. No hairpins on this one, just lean-left, lean-right, lean-left for perhaps 20 or 30 minutes. My route for the day would have us backtracking on this particular section before heading over to Passo Cibiana and points north, so I was looking forward to rerunning it on the mountain-side.
Don't mind me
Fortunately the Monster rider saw the goat in time
Somce decent turns on Staulanza
Just before Longarone there's a long tunnel, and immediately as you emerge from it you can look up in the mountains and see the Vajont Dam, impossibly high above you. I wish I would have stopped to get a picture, but I was thinking there would be a better vantage point. There wasn't.
We had a little bit of confusion figuring out how to get up to the dam, but eventually the route became clear (read: we saw the sign for it). A series of tight hairpins took us higher and higher over Longarone and eventually into a series of tunnels, each with cutouts looking out over the valley. I was initially a little alarmed at the tightness of the tunnel until I figured out they were one-way and controlled with signal lights. As you exit the last tunnel there's a set of buildings on your right and a parking lot, which is the visitor area for the dam.
I'm sure I can't adequately describe the feeling I had up there. At the parking lot you are looking out over the reservoir, or what used to be the reservoir. It first appears that you are just looking at a grassy, rocky field, but you're actually looking at what used to be the mountainside that came down to fill in the reservoir. Chilling. You can only see the backside of the dam from the parking lot, to see anything else you have to walk back through the tunnels. Frank stayed behind and the rest of us headed cautiously into the non-pedestrain-friendly tunnels. There were some interesting vistas available at the various openings in the tunnel wall, but it was only when you came out the other side could you get a good look at the front of the dam and get a sense of it's impressive height. The thought of a wall of water crashing over the top and roaring down to the towns below.... well, you really don't want to think about it.
What used to be a reservoir hundreds of feet deep
Backside of the Vajont Dam
Small shrine
Tunnels
Memorials in the tunnels
On the front side of the dam you can see some of the structure stabilizing the rock
Oh man, how do we get down to that road?
The front of the Vajont Dam
You can get a sense of the landslide scale in this shot
Tunnels to get to the Vajont Dam site
"..and on the right is the female reproductive system"
While the rest of us had been checking out the dam, Frank had been busy plotting out a new route for the afternoon on the Zumo. I didn't have any "must-do's" on the rest of my planned route so I didn't mind too much a change in plans. Besides, this was a group tour and everyone should get input. In the months leading up to this trip I had impressed upon everyone (those invited as well as those who ultimately went) that this was a "choose your own adventure" trip. If people wanted to stay together that's fine, but I strongly encouraged folks that they could do anything they wanted, ride anywhere/anyhow they wanted, and hopefully we would all just catch up at dinner. I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, whether some folks would splinter off and ride their our own routes, but so far we were all sticking together and that was working out fine. I think if there were more people on the trip we might have had multiple groups doing different routes.
One of the side benefits of a trip like this is getting to try out different bikes, and I was itching to swap out the TDM for one of the other bikes. I had ridden an FJR before so that was last on my list, and Frank was going to lead on the Varadero with his GPS, so I tossed my camera in Dave's CBF. The ergos were more compact than the TDM but still on this side of comfortable.
We retraced our route down to Longarone, doing all the hairpins downhill this time. I haven't spent time on an inline four in a long time, and have never had any long rides on a liter bike (even one as neutered as the CBF) and it was taking me a while to adjust to the different power delivery. I really enjoy the twin's strong midrange surge, be it the TDM on this trip or my Multistrada. The CBF's linear climb to a top-end rush was an entirely different experience and, to me, not well suited to hairpin strafing, at least on the downhills. I would open the throttle on corner exit and instead of a nice surge of torque propelling me a bit faster I had a lot of revs racing me to the next corner entry. I'm probably not explaining it well, but I like the lumpier "torque on demand" motor more than the "rev the rocket" type.
We had a bit of trouble back in Longarone trying to get out of town and onto the GPS-plotted route. More than once we found ourselves dead-ended, or circling the same street a couple times, before finally being able to get on the right track. This was my first time on the trip without a GPS, and it was at once both liberating and maddening. It was nice to let someone else do the leading and not keep looking down to make sure you didn't miss a turn, but when things go awry the OCD in me gets frustrated and it was hard not to be able to see what the issue could have been. The Zumo's were continuing to be a source of frustration on this trip - it's surprising how quickly you go from "what would I do without this?" to "I'm going to through you in the next river!" when it misbehaves, or doesn't do what you think it should have done. 97% of the time the Zumo's were faithful and invaluable servants, the other 3% they were routing us down one-way alleyways.
The road to the first pass on the new route was pretty uninspiring, just a busy commercial route through uninteresting towns. Passo d. Mauria turned out to be just so-so, beat-up pavement, no views to speak of, and short. We got to the top only to find that everything was closed, so no new pass pins (or ice cream) for us. Hey, sometimes you take a chance on a road and it doesn't work out, we've all been there.
Alps version of a ghost town
I felt I'd had enough of the CBF to get a good feel for it, so swapped with Peter for the FJR. Dave took his bike back, and Peter took my TDM. The route didn't have us continuing over the pass, so I pointed the FJR back down the road and we took off. My goodness the FJR is a rocketship. Very comfy, and very, very fast. To be honest I can't say it loved being on a tight, twisting pass with crappy pavement, but in it's element it's probably killer. By the bottom of the pass I was eager to get on my TDM, and Peter was equally as happy to give it up. He thought it felt 'loose' and 'broken'. I wish I liked either of the other 2 bikes more, but I was relieved to be back on the TDM (and have my GPS back). Our next stop was via Santa Ana, a small pass north of us about 20 or 30 minutes away.
Unfortunately that pass eluded us. We did a couple passes up and down the town but were unable to find the turnoff. Eventually we gave up and continued north in the vague direction of Cortina d'Ampezzo. We had a little stretch of busier boring road to contend to, but then found ourselves on Passo tre Croci which, at least on the southern half, is a fantastic fast road through the woods with some nice sweepers. Definitely a fun bit of road for some super-legal velocities. The hairpins (always there are hairpins) start near the top, and the ramp down to Cortina is a typical Dolomite twisty perfect affair.
We spent too much time at a too-crowded gas station in town (including some time being concerned about the blue gas coming out of the nozzle), eventually filling up 3-abreast on the same 50 euro note. Tanks replenished, I led the group up to find Drei Zinnen, a viewpoint that eluded Jim and I last trip due to crappy weather. That wouldn't be an issue this time, but my lack of knowing exactly where it was would be. More Zumo-induced hilarity getting out of Cortina before we could start back up Tre Croci, then we had to pick our way through a string of construction vehicles trying to back into us, then finally a fun run up the pass. I stopped to talk with Dave on the side of the road, only to realize it wasn't Dave but just some random biker on a black CBF. When we got to the top (again) of Tre Croci I had had enough time to figure out that Drei Zinnen was out of our reach for the day if we wanted to get back to Arabba at any decent hour. The run down Tre Croci (#3) had us entertained by a girl driving one of those tiny 3-wheeled trucks downhill at an alarming pace. You see one of these ahead of you and figure you'll zip right by in a moment or two. I'll be damned if it wasn't tricky to get around this girl barrelling down the pass.
Gas in Cortina - we try to save by buying in bulk
From Cortina there's two ways to get back to Arabba, over Passo Falzarego or Passo Giau. Hands down we chose Giau again. I had a great time following Dave down Giau, we were really in a good groove. That groove continued for me as we left Giau for another run on our newly-discovered SP20 and over Passo Fedaia. We stopped at the dam just to regroup, then completed the western ramp of Fedaia that we skipped yesterday. Fedaia passes very close under the biggest mountains in the Dolomites,which lead to Dave ranking them highest on his scale of rocks - "That's a big fucking rock!". Dave throws out perhaps one or two curses per trip, so you can imagine how impressed he was.
Frank on SP20
Peter on SP20
And finally Dave
Very cool geology on SP20
Nothing special, just a boring connector road in the Dolomites.
Looking back on SP20
Passo Fedaia
Lago de Fedaia
The TDM on Fedaia
Frank enjoying Fedaia
Now there's something you don't see every day
Dave and Peter at Lago de Fedaia
2-up on Passo Pordoi
Really, there's no reason to come ride the Alps
Peter on Pordoi
Nice!
Frank working it
These folks were having a great time going down Pordoi
I can't recall where it happened, but I have a note about "crazy yellow biker". It might have been on the Pordoi, not sure, but as I'm approaching an uphill left-hander, with plenty of traffic coming down at me, I get passed by a guy on a yellow bike who then basically lane-splits the hairpin between cars going in both directions.
We arrived back at the Hotel Mesdi with enough time to sit outside and enjoy a beer before dinner. I love this place - we sit down, a couple minutes later one of the waitresses comes out to see what we would like, and a few minutes after that we have a round of beers, some hand-cut fries and other assorted goodies.
Topics of conversation included:
Nice way to unwind
Dinner was very tasty tonight, topped off with a very good apple cobbler. After dinner we walked around downtown Arabba a bit (if there is such a thing) and checked out the ski lift area. Dave and Peter are avid skiiers, and at various times during our stay here you could practically see the wheels turning in their heads about coming here to ski.
Ever get that feeling you;re being watched?
Our dinners
Apple cobbler was delicious
These lifts would open in a few weeks to take summer hikers
Nothing to do
The back of the Hotel Mesdi. Dining room is on lower-level right, bar area lower level left.