A little bit about Stelvio

Going to bed real soon but have a few minutes

Climbing Stelvio was truly epic.  If  you have a chance to do it on a blue-bird day absolutely go for it. If its cloudy or raining forget it.  It is a slog.

The traffic was pretty terrible, even on a Monday. One of our tour members went down trying to avoid a headon collision with some moron trying to pass blindly.  Fortunately our colleague seems to be OK except for scrapes and bruises.

It is a beautiful climb.  Ill post more pics to my facebook when I can sync my camera (the ones there are just from my phone)  The numbered switchbacks begin at 47 but there are 49+ some climbing out of Prato allo Stelvio.  The climb faces incredible glaciated peaks and ascends through a forest before toping out on the exposed top 24 switchbacks.

The wild flowers were beautiful.  There were mountain streams everywhere.  One cascading several hundred feet into the canyon.

There were tons of motos and cyclists.  Few of us spoke the same languages so we just kind of smiled and waived.  I was encouraged by an italian couple.  A german woman said 'you have done well' as I was completing the last 10 switchbacks.

I turned on my gopro to film switchback 1 and cried.  I almost gave the finger to switchback 3 that kicked up to about 12% for a short pitch

I was surprised at how easy 9% began to feel after 15k.  My average speed was somewhere between 6-7km/hr .   Yes kmh.

I dont think I got any pics at the top really, I was completely disoriented and trying to buy souveniers and eat before i froze.  I ended up not descending because I was simply fried. The descent was beautiful from the van.