Stelvio Pass – Gavia Pass – Lake Garda (190km)
After about an hour at the top of the Stelvio Pass enjoying our bratwurst and the dramatic view, it was time to head off the south side and eventually down into Lake Garda some 190km away. We initially viewed this as just a “nice drive” with maybe a few good roads along the way. It proved to be much more than that with several very pleasant surprises around almost every corner.
Since Chris had driven us up the north side, it was now my turn to take us down the “easy side”. Good choice and obviously the benefit of years of experience. Chris on the other hand simply attributed it to dumb luck once we realized the road down the south side is wider, less steep, less crowded and offers a much better chance to experience the handling and power of the Porsche.
We were fortunate to have very little traffic on the south side leg and enjoyed pushing the Porsche through some wide sweeping turns and short straightaways. As with the ride up, there are roughly 45 turns on the way down but many are slight curves with only a few at the very top being of the 180o variety. After about 15-20 minutes of very pleasant driving on a road we would have preferred to take up versus down, we rounded a corner and the road began to stretch out before us on the run into Bormio.
No sooner had we started down this straight stretch and we noticed a group of cars pulled off the side of the road near a small church. So, we decided to stop to see if they were having problems and if we could lend a hand. It was a lovely setting but one the owners of the four cars were probably not enjoying. There were three Austin Healey 3000’s and an old Alfa Romeo Spyder – all experiencing their share of problems. The Alfa and one of the Healey’s were overheating and one of the other Healey’s had a more serious leak in the hydraulic clutch line.
The good news was that these guys had plenty of tools and hands between the 8 of them. The bad news is that they did not look like they were having any luck resolving the hydraulic leak. We offered our help but they felt they were fine, se we decided to get underway. Before leaving, they asked how our Porsche was running. Of course, we could not resist – “Just fine. Air cooled and a mechanical clutch!” With that we were on our way and wished them well.
The rest of the run to Bormio was wide open and began gently dropping in altitude. Once reaching Bormio, we decided to head east through the Stelvio National Park. We had read nothing about this area and were quite unexpecting as to what lay ahead given that the map showed the road through the park as relatively straight. Little did we know that the surprise of the trip awaited us.
We switched drivers as we entered the park and Chris was able to take advantage of the lightly traveled road and the sweeping turns. However, this quickly gave way to a less well maintained road and one that began to climb steadily toward the Gavia Pass at more than 2600m. Of course, as the map showed this to be a straight road, we had few expectations. How wrong we were as the scenery become more dramatic, snow became more common on the peaks, and the view of the glacier became ever closer.
After about an hour, we reached the top of the Gavia Pass and were awestruck. It was like a moonscape with nothing but large loose rocks everywhere and only a single stone building sitting in the middle of a field of rocks with nothing else around aside from an old WW2 monument commemorating a battle fought for this peak.
It was an amazing place and much more impressive than Stelvio had been – at least once we arrived. It is one of those places that you stumble upon and will remember for a long time to come. Fortunately, we have the pictures which only capture a portion of the awe the Gavia Pass had to offer.
As Chris still felt fresh and looking to reclaim a nice sweeping downward run, he decided to continue driving. This seemed fine to me as I was thoroughly enjoying the view and the ride. That was the point where things really started to go downhill – literally. Again, we thought we were looking at a straight road on the downside but as the ride up Gavia had proved far less than straight, we quickly accepted that a twisty ride lay ahead.
Little did we know that twisty was the least of the worries. The southerly run off the Gavia is not only in worse condition that the northerly run up, it is even narrower, with steep drop-offs and room for only one car in many places – usually on curves. We filmed a good part of this and will post a link on YouTube at some point. You will enjoy the parts where I am yelling “Left – Left” as we creep closer to the edge.
After what felt like forever, we finally reached bottom and saw the valley stretching ahead as it wound through the mountains on either side. The downside is that we were still hundreds of meters up the mountain and the road wound around the edge of the mountain side as it dropped elevation before reaching the valley floor.
Unfortunately, several of the tunnels we had to pass through were literally ONLY wide enough for one car. We were fortunate to follow a local Italian who honked all the way through every tunnel. After the 3rd tunnel we understood why when we encountered someone coming the other way. It was then a Mexican or maybe Italian Stand-off until each of us backed to a point where the tunnel was barely wide enough of two cars.
Once out of the park and onto the “B” roads again, we made good time but it was now approaching nightfall. With roughly 50km to go before reaching the north end of Lake Garda, we did the last hour in the dark along some rather twisty and dark back roads.
We eventually reached a clearing where the lights of Riva del Garda began to shine through and eventually approached the city and our hotel. We quickly dumped all of our gear in the room and headed off for a few well deserved beers and a good Italian pizza.
All in all, Day 5 was a very long day having us on the road for nearly 12 hours. However, given all that we saw and experienced throughout the day, it can only be summed up in one word – WOW!
More later,
Mike & Chris
