Day 2 - Trail 666

August 21, 2025

Route of the day

Click to see map

Download the gpx file or see the route on outdooractive.com

The beginning of a long day

According to our plan, this second day is going to be the toughest. Our planned route consists of more than 1700m of altitude gain, which would already be quite a long hike for a single day, leave alone for one out of 9 consecutive days of walking. Moreover, the weather forecasts for the day are not good - there is a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Luckily we find someone willing to give us a car ride from our B&B to the edge of the village, saving us about one hour of walk. We start walking at around 8:30.

The first part of the trail is not very steep, and the weather is not too bad either. We even manage to see some mountains!

The Puez-Odle group.

In about an hour we reach malga Antersasc (2084m on sea level). Around this small abandoned building we see a few chamois and some very fat marmots - seriously, those things were huge! Unfortunately all the pictures I took were terrible, you need some pretty good camera to catch them from a distance.

Sorry for the lack of marmot pictures. Here is a shot of myself staring at a tree growing on top of a rock instead.

After a short break, we get back on the trail and start walking towards the Puez hut. We could already tell from the map that the trail up to forcella Puez (2500m), before the hut, was going to be very steep. However, we found it to be very well maintained, which made it easier than we expected.

The trail up to forcella Puez is reinforced with some trunks that turn it almost into a staircase.

Unfortunately, as we walked up, the weather got much worse. We were forced to wear all our rain clothes again, including gloves.

We reach the Puez hut (2447m) at 11:20, earlier than planned. We take some time to rest and try to dry up from the rain; I change my socks and t-shirt, which definitely helps.

The forgotten Forcellas

(Forcella is an Italian term that denotes a tight mountain pass, usually only reachable via a steep trail. I will sometimes use the Italian word because I don’t know an exact equivalent in English. For proper nouns I may also use the equivalent word in the local language: Furcella or Jeuf in Ladin, Joch in German, Foržela in Venetian.)

We start walking again around 12:00, and it is immediately clear that we have made a small miscalculation in planning the route. We thought that the trail to Gardena Pass would be straight downhill, but actually we’ll have to climb up and then down a couple of tight passes: Furcella de Ciampei (2366m) and Jeuf de Crespëina (2528m). This is easily going to cancel out the time we gained in the morning. Fortunately, this part of the trail is quite pleasant to walk, if at times steep; the weather is also not too bad, as we only have to bear some light rain.

As we are about to reach Gardena Pass (2136m), a strong storm begins. I speed up to take shelter in a hut down at the pass, leaving my dad a few minutes behind. I reach the pass at 14:35.

One hell of a trail

The outlook for the last part of the day is bleak, to say the least. Thunderstorms are forecast until late in the evening. There is likely going to be a small windows of good weatehr between 16:00 and 17:00, but it is not going to last long enough to reach the Pisciadù hut, where we are going to sleep. We have to choose between leaving immediately under the heavy rain hoping it stops while we are on the way, or waiting for the first wave of the storm to pass but risking it starting again before we reach our destination.

We choose the former, because it was our best chance to arrive at the hut before it gets dark. Moreover, despite the forecast of thunder and lightning, so far it is just raining heavily, which although unpleasant is not dangerous.

We leave the pass at around 15:00, under the storm. The ascent is not steep at first. Luckily, as predicted, after about one hour the rain stops.

Our last view of Gardena Pass and the Odle group, on the way up to the Pisciadù hut.

But then we reach the infamous trail 666.

The beginning of trail 666. This is not a nickname, it is the actual number that the Italian Alpine Club gave to this trail.

Actually, this is the easiest of two possible ways to the Pisciadù, the other being the Ferrata Tridentina. The booklet I am following describes it as “[…] reserved for well-equipped experts. Don’t do it with heavy backpacks; don’t do it if the weather is not good.” We get at 0 out 3, the thought of taking the via ferrata does not not even cross our minds.

So trail 666 it is. This trail is also known as Setus trail, or somewhat improperly Setus via ferrata. It is extremely steep and it is more a climb than a walk, but it is not a via ferrata. Most maps describe it as sentiero attrezzato (equipped trail), as it does have some fixed steel rope and handles where climbers can hang a safety rope.

We have some simple ropes equipped with a Carabiner, and we decide to use them. In the following days we would talk with other people who took the same route, and some of them would claim that a rope is not necessary on this trail. I don’t care, I was relieved to have my trusty rope, especially considering the bad weather and how tired I was after more than 8 hours of hiking (plus the 9 hours of the previous day). And a safety rope is certainly of no use if kept in the backpack.

Trail 666 is really steep.

Overall, the steel rope and the handles are of great help, and although a couple of times I was unsure where to put my feet and I almost slept, I would not consider this trail dangerous, if one is properly equipped.

The reason I found this trail hard was its length. I seriously had some difficulties caused by how tired I was and how sore my muscles were, after two full days of hike. Sometimes I could not complete a step or an arm movement on the first try because I just did not have the enough strength to push or pull up. And the trail just kept going!

But at 17:30, exhausted but satisfied, we finally reach the top of this climb. The Pisciadù hut (2587m) is just around the corner.

My dad at the end of trail 666.

We, our clothes and our boots are still wet from all the rain we caught earlier in the day. Let’s hope everything dries up during the night.