CLAUTANA SADDLE

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Clautana Sadde: following Rommel’s footsteps

We will pass through the fork Clautana and go down along “the path of the Alpine troups” to the footprints of dinosaurs. Rommel, the desert fox, after the italian default of Caporetto, refined his strategy of “battles of movement”: his soldiers moved quickly thanks to the bicycles.

The route starts from the village of Claut, one of the doors of the Natural Park of Friuli Dolomites. Left behind Lesis, the last fraction of the village, we will start to climb constantly on a good dirt road, some sections are even cemented. The climb is fortunately in the shade of the woods.

Almost at the end of the ascent there is the possibility to restore at the Pradut mountain hut, it’s also a short digression to stop in lookout point. I am always amazed by the imposing of Mount Duranno, it is one of the few mountains that catches the eye from every side.
Continuing towards Casera Colciavas with a little bit of up and down we’ll get to Clautana saddle.

In the early ‘ 900, the Italian Army built a mule track linking Claut and the whole Val Cellina to Tramonti and the Tramontina Valley. The army could not have imagined that in November 1917 a German Mountain Battalion (Alpenkorp) under the orders of a young lieutenant, would cross the Clautana fork and using folding bicycles would quickly cover the distance between the Caporetto and Longarone, closing the retreat to the Fourth Army (of the Royal Italian Army) deployed in the Dolomites. The young lieutenant was Erwin Rommel, in the Second World War he did the “battles of movement” with the tanks, upon what he had learned from the bicycles.

We will follow Rommel’s footprints along the descent of the Alpine Road until Casera Casavento, a fun trail, that presents only short passages slightly exposed, that eventually we will face on foot. After a refreshment we will have the chance to see the dinosaur footprints, where you see very well the three fingers, as in Jurassic Park.
For the return we can choose between the road asphalt and a road in the woods: at that point our legs will choose the direction.

Tour details