Lagazoui Tunnels and a mad dash to Rifugio Auronzo

We had breakfast at our hotel and then Dan and I went into the Old Town of Innsbruck to swing by an outdoor store to get one more via ferrata lanyard. The store was huge - 4 levels which they capitalized on the outdoor window space by spelling "I love climbing." The Old Town felt quite different in the morning - very few people, but lots of delivery trucks and cars. Dan and I enjoyed our brief stroll solo, but needed to get moving if we were going to fit everything in today.

After leaving Innsbruck, we headed to the Lagazoui Tunnels which are in Lagazoui Mountain at 2835 meters. It is a complex series of tunnels developed in World War I as a strategy the Italian soldiers hold off the Austrian front. In fact the Italians built tunnels all throughout the mountains and credit this strategy for the saving the northern border. The end of WW1 is sometimes considered the 4th Independence Day for Italy. The tunnel we checked out was 1 km long with lots many off-shoots, small "rooms", and windows. It was essentially a museum as it was fully restored with much of the original wood and other relics from the war. 

We were planning on taking the cable car up to the summit, but found out that we would miss a via ferrata if we didn't hike up, so we passed on the cable car. James felt like he was hoodwinked. It was an easy via ferrata, but the views along the way were awesome! The tunnel was also considered a via ferrata, but it was not technical, so we were able to just use the cable to hold onto rather than clip in. Before we entered the tunnels, we stopped at Rifugio Lagazoui for an apple strudel snack - yum!

We finished the tunnels after 7:00 so we needed to beat feet to get to Rifugio Auronzo before 9:00. Everyone was hungry so we wanted to get some food at Cortina d'Ampezzo, but that town was a zoo with people. Finding a parking place was tricky. We eventually found a place to eat quickly and Dan did some creative parking. Then, we managed to skip into the Rifugio at 9:05. Needless to say, there were some stressful moments.