From ‘The life of an alpinist’ – Julius Kugy
‘Seen from the north, from the Saisera, the Jof di Montasio rises with its frightening walls. It's a vision that subjugates, that must be seen, that no description can give. How many times I've laid down on the lawn in front of the Saisera hut, to rest and dream, looking at it as you look at Cervino from Breil pastures. And what a sight, when the south wind used to bind up the ridges with black sails and turn the mountain into a severe throne of clouds! Particularly beautiful I used to see it when, sleeping in the Saisera, I woke up at its feet. Then, in the game of the morning lights, that colossus assumed the size of a dream. The north tower is near the Jof, so you can only guess the red fork that you can instead see so well from Dogna. Generally, you cannot distinguish the formation of the peaks, but a wonderful world of walls and above them, at a height that would make our heads recline, a stumpy elephant's back. On the right, beyond the north-east subpeak, there is a turreted ridge, like that of a giant dragon, that gives to the Jof di Montasio, seen from the Dolomites and the Tauri, exactly that fantastic form of a dragon that many people have noticed. Thus, I baptized it the dragon's ridge’.
‘At the southern vertex of the triangle, at the point where the valley narrows, there is the village of Valbruna. Few decades ago it was still a poor conglomeration of hovels, among which there was only one small uneven road. The war ended up destroying it from the ground up, but it was born again more beautiful, more welcoming and cleaner than it had ever been before. Today the village looks so charming and so naturally integrated into its surroundings that when you see it, arriving from the train station or along the street from Ugovizzza, you cannot help but consider it a small dream village. And while you approach it, it seems to say affectionately: ‘ Gruess Gott’’.
www.maca.tours
