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Rifugio Mario Bezzi – Gian Federico Benevolo
Rifugio Savoia
9.2 h: 13.2 km 930 m up over 2990 m 650 m down (4.4 h moving)
They run a really noisy and smelly generator in the secondary house. The smoke and smell is I'll. They keep the generator shelter slopen.
Wallet in room
No signal. Edge on pass
Shower free
Unfortunately the nearby Rifugio città di Chivasso is not open anymore.
Rifugio Savoia
Valgrisenche – Rifugio Mario Bezzi
7.1 h: 17 km 1200 m up over 2370 m 550 m down (4.9 h moving)
They did not answer our reservation mail and spoke only Italian on the phone. We had to find a native speaker to make the reservation.
Free shower.
The hut have massive wooden window shutters and bars facing the glacier instead of the former big glass windows.
There were 3 big avalanches since 2012. Not seen any time before. So they claim they had to adapt for the changing climate and fortified the hut…
Rifugio Gian Federico Benevolo
9 h: 13 km 1100 m up over 3300 m 1100 m down (4.6 h moving)
3 levels bunk beds, 6 in the room like on the train coupé…
The beds were quite soft and sagging…
Shower €3
What's nearby:
A full glacier equipment and skills are neaded to ascend the Gran Paradiso (4061 m).
An alternative is a Tresenta (3609 m) without the glacier and similar views.
Rifugio Vittorio Emmanuelle II
9 h: 15 km 1200 m up over 2880 m 1000 m down (4.7 h moving)
The path to the hut is an easy and fast ascent.
No mobile signal on the hut, but there is one on a nearby viewpoint. The internet is unusably slow though. Guides can use the internet on the hut, so you can ask them for a weather forecast.
Thermos tea for the trip: €3.
rifugiovittorioemanuele.com, FB.
Alternativela, there's a Rifugio Tetras Lyre down in the valley if overbooked.
Tresenta ascent 3600 m
3 h: 8 km 840 m up over 3600 m 840 m down (2 h moving)
Alternative ascent when you don't have equipment or skills for the Gran Paradiso.
Big part of the track is on a moraine or big loos rocks.
The path is not hard to find. There are lot of cairns, but really watch for them to make sure you don't get into a hard terrain with more loose rocks.
There was no snow or glacier on the way at all, so no equipment is needed. But you must be comfortable with the terrain.
Rifugio Federico Chabod
3.1 h: 6 km 316 m up 300 m down (1.8 h moving)
The friendliest and funniest hut:)
And the only one with a salty breakfast, juice, cheese!
Couple of big rocks on the way, but not that hard to pass.
We saw a lot of ibexes below the hut.
Rifugio Vittorio Sella
10.7 h: 18 km 1300 m up over 3290 m 1350 m down (6 h moving)
The longest and most strenuous day.
There are fixed ropes and ladders on the way. Not that hard, no equpiment neded, but slows you down and you must be comfirtable climbing that down.
There was also a landslide recently, that makes the bottom part harder to pass through big loose rocks.
The hardest part is the last step from the last fixed rope and couple of big rocks to pass below.
Lot of ibexes right above the hut. They go down for herbs when it's dry.
Good local vines €22-29.
Shower €4.
They have bus timetables on the hut and even offered us to order a taxi (it would be around €110 back to Valgrisenche)
↓ Valnontey descent
6.7 km 900 m down (1.6 h moving)
Cogne
3.3 km 150 m down (0.7 h moving)
Alternatively there goes a bus there.
Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele II & Gran Paradiso or Tresenta
Rifugio Federico Chabod
Rifugio Vittorio Sella
Huts
All huts accepted credit cards and offer piknik packages for the day, but mostly just sweet. Even the breakfasts are mostly just sweet.
Charging was accessible on all huts.
Most huts expects you to bring your own sleeping bag linen. Some offer renting it for around €5-6.
Half board overnight is around €50-55.
Huts are busy in the season. Booking more than month in advance might be necessary. Or you must be lucky.
No huts have online reservation. Asking for couple of dates and then finding confirming those free in a sequence among all might be handy.
No dogs allowed in the national park.
Transportation
It takes 3 connections to get back to the car to Valgrisenche, so you must catch the bus in Cogne around 12:35.
You must search directly on aosta.arriva.it bus operator. Aggregators like Google or Rome2rio don't have all connections. Bus stops locations can be found also in mapy.cz, but no timetables there.
There is no site searching all the public transport in the Italy (for the record: this observation is from 21st century and hopefully might change in the next millenia).
In buses, credit cards are not accepted. Contrary, in the central bus station, they don't want to sell you the ticket in the bus, and force you to find a central office and return with the ticket. Better do it in advance.
Alternatively, the taxi for around €110 can drive you back to the car. List of taxis by local tourist info.
Even more alternative way of getting to the car is to rent an e-bike in Aosta and getting back to return it before 16-17h.
Maps
The navigation is not hard here, we used a versatile offline mapy.cz for our convenience. A paid version of Kompass map: Wanderkarte has more details.
Gran Paradiso ascent
We did not ascend the Gran Paradiso, because you'd have to carry the equpiment all the way around. Reports form ascent by Südtirol Alpin (DE), Hanibal (CZ).
General info
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