Puez Refuge, from the Vallunga car park

Description

When you reach Selva di Valgardena, you can park either at the Dantercepies cable car parking area, or at the Vallunga parking area. The excursion begins at the Carabinieri barracks. Pass the little church of San Silvestro (1632m) and take path no. 12, which branches off to the right into Val di Chedul. The path climbs steeply through the forest and continues to climb until the vegetation diminishes. We continue following trail no. 12 to Forcella Crespeina, ignoring the path to the right that leads to Forcella Cir. The section below the Forcella Crespeina (2528m) is all stepped with comfortable wooden steps. At the forcella, after the necessary pause to admire the vast panorama of the Altopaino and, at the bottom, the Puez mountain hut, the destination of our excursion, you can continue along the high path, marked 2A, or the low path. Because of the snow, and having already walked the high path on other occasions, we continued on trail no. 2 to descend to the beautiful Crespeina lake. We then return to the main path and follow it to the Forcella de Ciampei (2366m). We ignored the right-hand path (downhill towards Val Badia) and the left-hand path (downhill towards Vallunga) and continued straight on where, on an easy path, we reached the Puez hut (2475m). For the return journey we continued along trail number 2 (signposted Rifugio Firenze) but at the fork we took trail number 16 which descends on easy steps and reaches Vallunga about halfway down. Continuing to the right we returned to the starting point. An alternative descent route is to take path no. 14 from the Rif Puez and then walk the entire length of Vallunga. The Puez-Odles Nature Park is a beautiful area, accessible from both Val Gardena and Val Badia. The paths are all of 'E' difficulty, but there are also equipped sections and via ferrata for those who want to reach the peaks.