Refuge Oriondé - Duca degli Abruzzi

The itinerary for the Oriondé refuge starts next to the Miravidi hotel, from where the path called 13 EE begins. If there is no parking in front of the hotel, you can park in the large parking lot of the golf courses near the Metzelet restaurant and with a short walk you can reach the starting point mentioned above.

Going up, you first meet a restaurant called Resto-grill Le Clochards, then at the first crossroads, passing to our right, under an iron bar, you meet immediately behind, a small chapel of the Alpine troops, and then attacked, a ristopub that we especially recommend on the way back. where you can quench your thirst, relax and enjoy a splendid view. You always follow up path 13 EE (it is impossible to make a mistake given the size of the road) at times you can make cuts on the path, which are important when the farm road really follows the profile of the mountain a lot, lengthening the path a lot.

After a first small bridge, continue until you reach a crossroads of the old path called 12 EE, continue keeping to the right and after a few hairpin bends, cross the bridge over the Porteiller waterfall.\\\\\\\\nGoing up the view of the valley and Cervinia becomes breathtaking we pass some ruins that the surrounding landscape makes us immediately forget, the view of Breithorn, Furgen and Klein Matterhorn and the now imminent refuge is spectacular.

After about 2 hours for 5 km and 800 meters, you will reach the Oriondè Duca Degli Abruzzi Refuge at an altitude of 2810 meters, renovated in 2010, the first point of support for mountaineers attempting to climb the summit. Up to here the difference in height from Cervinia is about e 800 meters (see altimetric profile in the table). A few meters from the refuge there are the Oriondè III lakes, immediately behind, and Oriondè I on the left side.

From here, if you want, you can continue towards the Croce di Carrel, always taking path 13EE on the left of the refuge, passing in front of a crucifix next to the lake.\\\\\\\\nFrom this point, even if for only 820 meters in length, the ground becomes crumbling, and you simply have to be careful not to slip.\\\\\\\\nSome reports consider the last stretch to be an EE path but I think there is nothing complicated except that of having to know a little orientation since here the signs for the Cross are absent and you must have a glance to identify the various little men on the rocks that show us the right direction. Be careful not to slip in the only slightly ugly stretch before the cross, but there is absolutely nothing dangerous, even if in the mountains, attention is always the first rule. After the last passage and a last little effort of a couple of minutes, about 140 meters in altitude from the refuge and a 20-minute walk, here in a niche in the rock, the monument dedicated to J.A. Carrel, who died of fatigue after having led his consortium to safety during a storm. He died bravely, as he had lived, coming down from his mountain: after having fought hard against an endless storm, he rescued his client, the young Turin musician Leone Sinigaglia, and the bearer Carlo Gorret, and finally succumbed to exhaustion. A cross dedicated to his memory, the so-called Croix Carrel, has been placed at the point where Carrel expired.