Montalto - snow - very long day

Hiking up to Montalto was fine the first kilometers. Nice forest walking. Until I hit the ski piste and the snow started. First you have to hike straight uphill. Quite an ascend. I thought this must be at least a red (medium) piste. Climbing about 1/3 of it, the SI turns into the forest again. The trail full of snow. Somebody walked before further up the piste. So I double checked the map and decided to do the same. Hike up to the lift and walk almost flat along the paved road up to Montalto.
Probably it is easier in the snow.
Up the hill, I've seen the winter sign. It was a black piste. Hmmm...
All in all, I think it was a good decision. But the stretch was just too long and in the afternoon the snow is so soft, that your lower leg is often completely in the snow. Hard and cold walking. It cost me and Lupo lots of energy. I have not looked it up, but I guess this has been snow walking for about 10km. It took us lots of time. And my feet got so cold, that they started to hurt. Especially the last part and on the way down. First it was possible to slide down s little bit. Which was easy. And I thought there must be a packed snow in my shoe. It hurt. I stopped and looked into the shoe... No, there was nothing. The feet was so cold, that the hard ground hurt with every hit. Finally the snow got less and a tricky single trail started. That was the way down to Polsi. And all this actually started at about km 30 I guess. The tiredness got slowly more and more. But almost running down the single trail earned up my feet again and I was happy to teach the monastery Polsi at about km 48. Unfortunately they have sheep and thus also 3 or 4 kettle dogs. The big ones. One spoted us and started to bark. And the others came around the corner. 2 men there tried to calm them down and chase them, but actually that worked only temporarily. So I just walked thru and started even the next stage to San Luca. In hope too find pretty fast a spot to sleep.
A friend has earned me about that stage. And really .. The path got small and was full of trees and branches. And this around km 49 and 19:15.
Every 100m took us forever and it got dark. I've tried to find a flat spot on the map. If we reached it, it was actually not flat. The way did not open. You are in the forest on a step decent to the side and down a river. Often the path was broken. Lots of climbing over trees etc.
Finally at 20:30 and km 52 I decided to sleep on the trail, covered by trees. In hope that it does not rain at night and that the wind is not so strong that more branches fall down.
It was no silent night.... Lupo was kind of nervous. He woke me up at 5am straight. I think he was really thirsty.

70.800 steps - 52.1km

Alternative VaSentiero stages
(lower elevation, shorter, probably better to walk):
https://www.vasentiero.org/stage/rifugio-bianco…
https://www.vasentiero.org/stage/piani-di-zervo…Read more