The Italian Alpine Club (CAI) has recently inaugurated a centralized online booking system for all huts owned by the club. The new system makes the booking of stays easier, especially for people that do not speak Italian.
In Abruzzo there are four CAI owned huts:
The new booking systems is active from the Summer of 2024.
The Bivacco Bafile (Bafile Bivouac) is an emergency shelter on the south-east ridge of the central summit of Corno Grande (Gran Sasso range). It is located at 2669 meters / 8756 feet above sea level and is accessible from Campo Imperatore via a hiking trail and a ferrata. Built in 1966 by the L’Aquila section of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI), it provides both emergency shelter from bad weather, and easy access to various climbing routes on the south face of Corno Grande. It is also very popular with hikers (equipped with harness, helmet, a ferrata kit, and no fear for exposure) who want to spend the night at altitude and see the sun rise over the Adriatic sea in the morning.
After 58 years in service, the bivouac was badly damaged by a storm during the 2023/2024 winter, and the CAI section of L’Aquila declared [1] that the structure is not safe anymore, and should not be used during the current season.
The good news is that they already got the funding for a new bivouac, that will be placed in the spot of the old one during the summer of 2025, while the old structure will be removed in the fall of 2024, repaired, and it will find a new home in the city of L’Aquila.
[1] https://cailaquila.it/inagibilita-del-bivacco-andrea-bafile/
As you may remember, in February 2024 the L’Aquila chapter of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI) upgraded the rating of the Centenario trail from a hike to an alpine route, due to the conditions of the equipped sections of the trail.
Unfortunately, on the 29th of May of this year the municipality of L’Aquila announced the immediate closure of the trail with an executive order; you can find the order here (in Italian). While the order only covers the section of the trail that is located in the territory of L’Aquila, the other municipalities that are crossed by the trail also published similar orders.
Therefore, the Centenario trail must be considered closed, and considering the time it may take to fix all the equipped sections, this situation may last for years. A sad day for our beloved region.
The “Abruzzo Mountain Race” is a series of trail running events taking place in our region. While all events are independent from each other, and a runner can choose to only participate in one or some of them, there will be a special ranking for people that participate and finish all of them.
The races of the 2024 edition are:
It is important to remember, especially for foreigners that have never raced in Italy, that to participate in events like this one it is required to be a member of a registered sports club, and have a medical certificate that qualifies you to participate in a competitive running event.
For what concerns the club membership, it is often possible to temporarily join the sports club organizing the event for a small fee, usually between 5 and 20 euro. As for the medical certificate, foreigners can ask their doctor to write them one; large events, such as the UTMB Lavaredo Ultra Trail (LUT), provide a standardized form for all non Italian participants. While this particular form is not valid for any other event than the LUT, you can show it to your doctor as an example of what is required to race in Italy.
Great news for all climbers: Versante Sud, the famous Italian guidebook publisher, published Abruzzo Rock, the newest guide to sport climbing crags in our region.
The guidebook is available online and in selected bookshops (and climbing gyms) in Italy, and it does not have an English translation, although it should be fairly easy to use even for non Italian speakers.
Buying a copy of the book will also give you a code for the iClimbing app, from which you can download an electronic copy of the guide and see all crags on a map.