No Mints Adventures

Margy and I have recently decided to undertake the task of hiking one of Europe's long distance trails, the Via Alpina - Red Trail, that stretches 1500 miles from Trieste on the Adriatic Sea to Monaco on the Mediterranean. In doing so, it winds it's way through the alpine regions of 8 countries: Slovenia near Trieste, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Italy, and France; and finally ending near the world-famous beaches of Monaco. We have decided to hike this immense trail in stages with the hopes of finishing it in 4 years. Our first stage will take us through the mountainous region of Slovenia and Austria, and finishes in the Italian Dolomites near the famous resort of Cortina. This will be a somewhat arduous hike requiring a fair amount of will power and endurance. If you think you might be interested in joining us on this alpine hut to hut journey …..check out the Via-Alpina Website. If you are still interested then go to our sign up page: Mail List & Trip Signup

( Alpine Slovenia, Austria, & Italy)

June 4 - June 30, 2010

27 Days - 421 Kilometers

[ Camping, Huts, Hotels ]

$300 Organizing Fee

Physical & Skill Level Requirements: (Hard) We will be hiking through the high alps of Slovenia, Austria, and Italy. The trails will vary all the way from easy to brutal, to non existent ….. So anyone joining us on this endeavor should be experienced in traveling in all sorts of alpine conditions ranging from snow, rocky mountainsides, to wandering through dense forests. The weather in the mountains will sometimes be fair and sunny, but at the time of year we are hiking, we can expect heavy rains and even sporadic snow storms. If you have concerns about your ability to complete this trip, I would encourage you to give us a call so that we can talk things out a bit.

What You Get for Your Money:

-- Our Charges: Your money pays for all the various expenses involved in running our web-site, mailing, printing, and phone costs, etc. In addition, we tend to act as guides ….although to consider us as professional guides is a bit of an exaggeration.

-- Your Other Expenses: The BIG one is flying to and from Europe from your hometown. Beyond that, you need to pay for your food, lodging, maps, and incidentals.

Camping & Lodging Options: We will use a combination of various places to sleep ranging from youth hostels, hotels, mountain huts, lodges, and even camping when no beds are available. We will be primarily looking to find beds each night. In theory there is lodging available at the end of each days travel. In reality, huts sometimes are fully occupied, and sometimes not even open, contrary to their scheduled dates of operation. We can book some lodging in advance as I will be carrying a cell phone, but because I speak neither Slovenian, German, or Italian … there may be times when we simply have to show up and hope that there are beds available. When beds are not available, we'll just have to find some place to camp.

-- Austrian Alpine Club Membership: You may want to consider joining the UK branch of the Austrian Alpine Club. If you are a member you get to stay in alpine club huts in Slovenia, Austria, and Italy for half price. In addition, membership provides insurance for emergency rescues in the mountains. As to whether the cost of membership equals the amount save …..kind of a a close call. If in doubt, join.

Austrian Alpine Club - UK Branch#

Equipment:

-- Camping & Hiking Gear: You will need a pack, tent/bivy bag, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad. And even though most huts will have meal service, it would be a good idea to bring along some simple eating utensils such as a cup and spoon in case we have to camp or bivouac.

-- Clothing: Hey, even though it is early summer, we must be prepared for a range of climatic conditions including heavy rain and even sporadic snow showers. You should have appropriate foul weather for these occasions as well a two sets of underwear, shirts, and plenty of socks.

-- Footwear: ? You need a good set of boots that are well broken in prior to the trip. It would be nice if they were waterproof, but that is probably not attainable given that we will have to make stream crossings, keeping our boots on for traction. In addition to your boots, a pair of slippers or flip-flops will be needed for when we are in the mountain huts as boots are left outside the door.

-- First Aid Kit: ? Bring your own personal kit to cover minor cuts, blisters, and muscle/joint aches.

I would suggest that you give me a call if you have any questions concerning what we need for this trip. Emphasis should be on keeping the pack light to keep the effort of gaining and losing massive amounts of elevation to a tolerable level.

Sign Up Maximum and Minimum: The maximum number of hikers we can have for this trip is 6 including Margy and myself. When you sign up, indicate if you want to be placed on a stand-by list if the trip is full. For those of you who have never been on one of our trips, we would like to talk to you on the phone somewhere along the line before you are officially accepted.

Food: The food situation for this trip is a little ambiguous. In theory, most of the mountain huts and inns that we will be staying in will provide breakfasts and dinners, and some will even supply a bag lunch for the trail. In reality, the meal service will be a little spotty, so I would recommend that each of us carry a 3 day supply of food that doesn't need to be cooked to cover us when we can't get meal service at our lodging. This will be doubly important when we are forced to camp. My own choice for that 3 day supply of food will consist of granola with powdered milk, nuts, and dried fruit. If our supply of emergency food dwindles down, we can always descend to the villages in the valley far below and hopefully re-supply.

Information About You and Us! As a final word, participants must understand that these are not commercial trips; you will not be supplied with the hand holding care that is generally given on "higher end" trips and therefore I expect most of our participants to be somewhat self-reliant individuals. Most of the trips tend to be of a unique nature that I seldom have done before and, sometimes, things go awry. Often these mishaps are my fault, sometimes they are beyond control. At any rate, I expect you to accept whatever unexpected and adverse conditions we meet with good humor and grace. Complaining to me about trivial annoyances is not acceptable. If you want and expect a trip that is tightly scheduled with little or no surprises or discomforts ….. this trip is not for you.

Credit and Debit Cards. When traveling, particularly overseas, we recommend that you carry both a credit card and debit card to pay for things and get cash. Changing cash overseas can be an expensive affair, but by using a debit or credit card, your rates are generally better when making currency conversions. You should have two cards, hopefully with different financial institutions, in case you have a problem with one of the cards. Credit and Debit card machines are found just about everywhere now days, with Visa having the better geographic coverage. Slovenia, Austria, and Italy are on the Euro.

Travel and Medical Insurance: These are two items that some folks consider a necessity, others an unnecessary expense. If you cannot afford to have a change in your travel plans or cannot afford medical expenses outside the US, you might consider checking into both options. Diseases exist everywhere and accidents can happen at anytime. Keep in mind that we are usually not in much of a position to help you when it comes to serious accidents and medical problems. The following web site has a listing of several insurance companies, good for quick comparison shopping:

www.insuremytrip.com

June 4 (Fri.) Meet in Trieste. We will meet at 6:00 pm at the Hotel Centrale Trieste which is located about a half a mile from the train station in central Trieste. We plan to stay at this hotel for two nights before heading out on the trail. As soon as we have our roster of 6 hikers, I will check with each of you about booking a room there. If you go to the hotel's web site, you will see all pertinent information concerning availability, prices, directions, etc. I'm assuming the rest of you are likely to be flying into Airport Ronchi dei Legionari that is connected to Trieste by a shuttle bus (line 51). The bus ride is about an hour and it drops you at the downtown Trieste train station. Then it is a short 20 minute walk to the hotel.

-- 1. Email or Phone Us - You can use the "Sign Up For A Trip !" form or call 1-760-872-7630.

-- 2. Our Reply - We will then reply, either to accept you on the trip, or possibly we might have a question or two for you first. If you have not traveled with us before, we will need to talk to you, so we'll give you a call.

-- 3. Money! After we have accepted you for the trip, we will ask that you send us a check for $300 U.S. Please don't sign up for this trip unless you truly intend to come. We are limiting the trip to 6 people …. So, if you cancel, you have probably kept someone else from coming.

Maps: To the side are our recommended sources for the various maps that we ask you to obtain for any of our trips. So ….here is what we figure we need for the trip: A complete set of hiking maps at the scale of 1:50,000. I have already ordered these maps and you are welcome to use them. However, if you have any aspirations to hike by yourself and/or get lost, it would certainly be a good idea to have your own set. All these maps are available from Omni Resources However it takes them about two months to get them all together and shipped to you. So order early if you plan to get your own.

Slovenia:

65-9770-IS Slovene Istra

65-9770-JE Julijske Alps (East)

65-9770-JW Julijske Alps (West)

65-9770-NA Nanos

Austria:

66-2273-XX47 Lienzer Dolomiten

66-2273-XX58 Sextener Dolomiten

66-2273-XX60 Gailtaler Alpen

66-2273-XX64 Villacher Alpe

Italy: You don't need maps for Italy as the trail is on the Italian/Austrian border, so the Austria maps will do the trick.

Web Sites: Following is a list of various websites that we feel can help you in providing additional information for planning your trip with us.

-- Trieste Hotel Centrale: This is the hotel that we plan to stay in upon our arrival in Trieste. It is located in central Trieste about half a mile from the train station.

-- via-alpina.org This is the organization that is behind the development of the Via Alpina trail system. Please go to this web site and click on the red trail. You can then get a day by day description and maps of the 26 sections that we will be doing . (R1 thru R26)

-- Ingo Ronner's Trail Description: This is the only English version of hiking our section of the trail that I could find …… very enlightening !

-- Ingo Ronner's Photos: Ingo took a really nice set of pictures of the red trail located in 3 different folders. Check them out.

No Mints Adventures

(Wayne Martin & Margy Marshall)

1335 Rocking W Dr. #390

Bishop, CA 93514

Phone: 1-760-872-7630

E-mail: nomints@opriusmail.com

Web : http://www.nomints.com

http://www.triestehotelcentrale.com/eindex.html

Hotel Centrale Trieste

Via Amilchere Ponchielli 1

34122 Trieste, Italy

Phone: +39 0406 39482

Email: info@hotelcentraletrieste.com

June 6 thru June 30 - Hiking the Via Alpina. I don't have a detailed daily itinerary as it pretty hard to predict how exactly the various daily stages will fall into place. We have 26 recommended stages (R1 - R26) that you can find on the Via Alpina (Red Trail) website: http//www.via-alpina.org Some of these stages we can probably double up on, others may take more time depending on weather and conditions. If things go well, we should pull into the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo on the afternoon of the 30th. For those of you that are leaving the next day, an afternoon flight out of Venice will be your best bet as it will take most of the morning to get to Venice via bus and train. Another good option is to fly out of Innsbruck, Austria ….but you will need a full day of travel time to get to Innsbruck. If you have some spare time, Cortina is a great place to relax. If you have any questions, give us a call or write.