Italy - June 2025

With Kaitlin doing the Dolomiti Extreme Trail on the 6th and us both doing the Monte Rosa Summit on the 13th, we decided to spend a full 12 days in Italy. 

Dolomiti Extreme was a great success. Kaitlin was first woman and 15th overall. Her time was 16h28min. The race website says 103Km and 7150M+. Race website and results here

Kaitlin on top of the podium

After the awards, we drove across the Dolomites to the Sondrio Valley. We booked a small Airbnb and enjoyed some biking and hiking, recovering/tapering, and generally hanging out. For me, the highlight was definitely the food. The lowlight was definitely the huge number of ticks. Kaitlin had 10+ on her during one hike. 

Eating some good local food. 

Next up on our agenda was the Monte Rosa SkySummit. It's a team uphill-only race from the small town of Alagna (1150m) to Margherita Hut (4554m) at the summit of Monte Rosa. Yes, that's about 11,500ft of climbing with a few other small up and downs to make it a 12,000ft race finishing at 15,000ft elevation. They also have an up and down race called the Monte Rosa SkyMarathon. 

The gun went off at 5:30 a.m., and Kaitlin and I started somewhere in the middle of the pack, trying to stay calm and controlled since there was a lot of climbing. That was a bit of a mistake as it funneled quickly, and we got quite stuck in the bottleneck of the single track. We lost a bit of time those first few kilometers until we hit the ski runs, and both the track was wide and the pack thinned out. We had space to run (I mean hike) without smacking poles with others. We had a great tempo and worked through the field for a while. 

About halfway through the race, we encountered snow and stopped to put on our microspikes. Sadly, from there it was singletrack again, and passing got difficult. But by then, we were in a solid position and just settled in for the hard slog up the snow. Once we hit the glacier, we roped up and kept on moving. It was going well until we hit the narrow couloir with fixed ropes. There were three choices of ropes, and we chose the furthest left as it had the fewest people on it. It was a horrible mistake, as the group ahead of us was really struggling. We lost a lot of time and many places while we waited for them to figure out how to use their via ferrata tools and not get tangled up. Oh well, it was a long race and we had time. From there on, though, I've got to say the race got hard. The snow firmed up so we could pass, but we were up over 12,000ft in elevation, and breathing was hard. That last hour was difficult for both of us. Kaitlin had never been above 14,100ft, and now she was expected to race up to 15,000ft. We were both short of air but doing well. 

We finished in 4h55min. We were 21st overall and 3rd coed team. It was a good showing for us, and I'm proud of Kaitlin for pushing that hard at high elevation a week after a 100km race. 

All smiles as we walked back down to the gondola

The Margherita Hut and the line up and down

You'll see in the photos the huge number of people. There were over 700 racers (between the summit and the marathon races) and another thousand spectators and general attendees headed up to the summit of Monte Rosa. I would never have expected to see that many people at that elevation. But also, it's so cool to have people cheering the whole way. 

Strava link with the route and details

Back home on Sunday, and time to get our bikes ready for the next adventure.