Val Grosina and Alpe Dosdè Hike Plant Notes

Informational Signs ~ Plants We Spotted

On our Val Grosina and Alpe Dosdè Two-Day Hike, we spotted a number of the usual flower suspects, as noted below. But what caught our attention were the impressive informational signs about the plants and environments in the valley, especially on Hike 1 and in Val Verva. They talk about meadow ecosystems that, on first glance, seemed unassuming and insignificant but after reading these signs, they give you a sense of their importance. Well done who ever created these signs!

Val Verva Informational Signs

Boscaglia ad Ontano verde

• Boscaglia ad Ontano verde means “Green alder shrubland”. This sign is where Alpe Verva meets Val Viola.
• Alder (Alnus viridis) is in the birch family (Betulaceae)
• “Megaforbie,” i.e., tall, dense, herbaceous plants that love rich, damp ground.
• The flexible branches of alder resist damage from moving snow in avalanche or heavy-snow zones.
• Plants you will find with alder:
• Senecio fuchsii — Fuchs’s Ragwort, a yellow-flowered perennial.
• Petasites albus — White Butterbur, a plant with big, broad leaves.
• Adenostyles alliariae — Alpine Adenostyles, a perennial with tall with pink blooms.
• Aconitum napellus — Monkshood has striking purple flowers that are highly toxic.

Pascolo Pingue

• Pascolo pingue means “rich pasture”, highly productive, rich-forage species.
• Balanced grazing pressure to keep the plant mix diverse and nutritious.
• Key forage grasses pictured in the sign are:
• Poa alpina — a hardy alpine bluegrass, nutritious and resilient.
• Phleum alpinum — an alpine timothy grass, good for hay and grazing.
• Festuca rubra — a red fescue, adaptable and palatable.

Pascolo umido

• Pascolo umido means “wet pasture”, which is a mix of meadows and grazing areas where the soil stays moist for much of the year.
• Typical wet pasture plants include:
• Cirsium palustre — marsh thistle, tall with spiny leaves and purple blooms.
• Eupatorium cannabinum — hemp agrimony, pink‑flowered and loved by pollinators.
• Filipendula ulmaria — meadowsweet, fragrant white blossoms, often near streams.
• Caltha palustris — marsh marigold, bright yellow flowers in spring.
• This sign is a reminder that these soggy meadows aren’t “waste land” — they’re living reservoirs of water and wildlife, worth protecting for both nature and people.

Praterie a Carice ricurva

• Praterie a Carice ricurva means “Grasslands/meadows of curved sedge”
• Carex curvula — curved sedge is a hardy grass‑like plant in the Cyperaceae family. Its ochre, curled leaf tips are caused by a specific fungus (Clathrospora elynae), a natural part of this ecosystem.
• Found high in the alpine zone, above the tree line, where the climate is too harsh for woody plants.
• Other plants found with curved sedge:
• Senecio doronicum — bright yellow composite, often on granite soils.
• Phyteuma hemisphaericum — “raponzolo alpino,” with striking spherical violet flower heads.
• Senecio incanus — pale yellow‑white blooms, adapted to wind and cold.
• Leucanthemopsis alpina — the alpine daisy, a cheerful white flower of rocky meadows.

Praterie palustri

• Praterie palustri means “Marshy meadows”
• Plant communities in flooded or waterlogged zones — often called crelofore (cotton‑grass stands) and cariceti (sedge stands). Not especially valuable for grazing, but ecologically important.
• Main plant groups shown present in these meadows:
• Eriofori (Eriophorum spp.) — cotton‑grasses with fluffy white seed heads, in the wettest spots.
• Carici (Carex spp.) — sedges that thrive in saturated soils.
• Trifolori (Trifolium spp.) — clovers adapted to damp meadows.
• Giunchi (Juncus spp.) — rushes, often in slightly less flooded patches.
• Over time, plants deposit peat that gradually raises the ground level. As the soil rises and dries, the area loses its marsh characteristics and shifts toward other meadow types.

Rododendreto

• Rododendreto means “Rhondodenron stand/scrub/thicket”
• In Italian, rododentreto is a technical habitat name built from rododendro (rhododendron) + the suffix ‑eto, which denotes a plant community dominated by that species — much like querceto for oak woodland or castagneto for chestnut grove. In English habitat descriptions, the equivalent construction is usually “X stand” or “X thicket” — for example, “oak stand” or “juniper stand.”
• Key species appearing with rhododendron:
• Mirtillino delle Alpi (Vaccinium myrtillus) — bilberry, with edible dark berries.
• Ginepro della zona (Juniperus sibirica) — a low, creeping juniper adapted to cold.
• Carice vaginata (Carex vaginata) — a sedge that thrives in alpine soils.
• This is the climax vegetation here — meaning the most stable, complex, and biomass‑rich plant community that naturally develops in this zone. Found above the larch and stone pine forests, where trees can’t survive due to harsher climate.

Rododendreto in fase evolutiva

• Rododendreto in fase evolutiva means “rhododendron shrubland transitioning to forest”
• This is unstable vegetation — it developed after pastures were abandoned or disturbed. Without grazing or other management, shrubs like Rhododendron ferrugineum (red rhododendron, or “rose of the Alps”) spread quickly.
• Breaking down the name Vaccinio-Rhododendretum ferrugineum
• Vaccinium is the botanical genus that includes bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus), bog bilberries (V. uliginosum), cranberries, and related ericaceous shrubs.
• The ‑o ending is just the Latin linking vowel used in phytosociological names.
• Rhododentretum ferrugineum = a plant association (‑etum) dominated by Rhododendron ferrugineum (alpenrose).
• Putting it together means: “The plant association dominated by Rhododendron ferrugineum with a significant presence of Vaccinium species.”
• In phytosociology, the formal name of an association often lists two (or more) diagnostic or dominant species. In this case, this tells ecologists that the shrubland isn’t pure rhododendron — it’s a mixed ericaceous community typical of acidic, subalpine slopes.

Plants Spotted

[Asteraceae] Cirsium spinosissimum



[Asteraceae] Doronicum grandiflorum

[Asteraceae] Leucanthemopsis alpina 

 
[Asteraceae] Senecio incanus



[Boraginaceae] Myosotis sp.


[Campanulaceae] Phytheuma hemisphaericum



[Caryophyllaceae] Cerastium alpinum


[Crassulaceae] Sempervivum montanum


rub
[Cyperaceae] Eriophorum scheuzhzeri



[Gentianaceae] Gentianella sp.



[Onagraceae] Epilobium angustifolium



[Ranunculaceae] Aconitum napellus



[Rosaceae] Geum reptans



[Rosaceae] Rubus ideaeus

We found a lot of this raspberries on our two day hike in the lower elevation parts of the trail. We also had a lot of blueberries, both Vaccinium uliginosum and Vaccinium myrtillus.



[Saxifragaceae] Micranthes engleri


 
[Saxifragaceae] Saxifraga byroides



[Viburnaceae] Sambucus racemosa

The Vajont Dam and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto: Lessons for Today

Vajont Dam ~ Musem of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto ~ Beyond the Visit ~ Photos

   

Left: View from parking area toward Vajont dam with Schiara Group in background.

Center left: The shell like form of the dam from where the control room used to be.

Center right: Entrance to the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

Right: Casa Fighera (Porta San Giovanni) - Serravalle Vittorio Veneto - with bullet marks from WWI.

Vajont Dam

It’s probably not on the top 10 list of the average visitor to Italy or even the top 100 for that matter, but sooner or later if you stay in Italy for any length of time, you’ll hear about the Vajont Dam and the infamous disaster associated with it, and then you’ll want to visit it. It’s an intriguing story—one that still has much to teach us.

On the night of October 9, 1963, over 2,000* people were killed, most by a large wave that crested the Vajont Dam and crashed down into the Piave Valley below, obliterating entire villages. The wave was created when a huge landslide plunged into the lake behind the dam. In many ways, the landslide was predicted and avoidable. But when money interests took over, data and warnings were ignored and suppressed. Today, the Vajont Dam stands as a disused monument to tragedy and hubris. The reservoir was never refilled, and the dam no longer serves any hydroelectric function.

* Plaques at the dam mention 1910 lives lost but many web sites indicate more.

Construction of the Vajont Dam (1957–1960) was a prestige project for SADE and later ENEL, leveraging cutting-edge design to supply power to Italy’s booming industrial north. By 1963, billions of lire, years of labor, political capital, and public expectation had been poured into the dam.

Geologists repeatedly flagged the mountain above the lake behind the dam, called Monte Toc, as unstable with a risk of a catastrophic landslide. Yet ENEL and government authorities suppressed reports and downplayed scientific appraisals. Their late, insufficient remedy was to lower the reservoir level and that came only days before disaster struck. 

The landslide was estimated at 260 million cubic meters. That’s over 100 football stadiums filled to the brim.

Visitors to the dam can just look from a distance, walk on the crest of dam, or take an in-depth tour. We walked on the crest of the dam in a short guided tour and then walked down on our own to where the lake used to be to lay our hands on the dam. The spot we touched on the dam’s wall was still over 100 meters above its true base. We were standing on the landslide fill.

After visiting the Vajont Dam, we wondered:

• What did we learn?
• How did we feel?
• What will we do?

We'll return to these questions later in the post, but on the subject of learning we were intrigued to find out that the criminal proceedings and archival records related to the Vajont disaster have been officially recognized by UNESCO. In 2023, the Archivio Processuale del Disastro della Diga del Vajont (Criminal Proceedings Archive of the Vajont Dam Disaster) was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

On the same day we visited Vajont we also visited the Museo della Battaglia di Vittorio Veneto. This museum, located in the town of Vittorio Veneto, deals with the decisive battle of World War I that took place around the town.

Why was it the decisive battle in WWI? The battle fought from October 24 to November 4, 1918, marked the final offensive on the Italian Front and led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The battle effectively ended fighting on the Italian Front and contributed to the end of WWI just days later, with the armistice taking effect on November 4, 1918. The defeat shattered the Austro-Hungarian military and coincided with the political breakup of the empire, as various ethnic groups declared independence.

The defeat of the Austro-Hungarian military was called by the leader of the Italian forces, General Armando Diaz, “Caporetto in reverse”. The Battle of Caporetto, fought from October 24 to December 19, 1917, was a catastrophic defeat for Italy during World War I, where Austro-Hungarian and German forces broke through the Italian lines on the Isonzo front. Over 600,000 Italian soldiers either surrendered or deserted, forcing a chaotic retreat to the Piave River.

We are embarrassed to admit that we didn’t know that much about Caporetto or that Italy also changed sides in WWI. Our history teachers would be disappointed.

The town of Vittoria Veneto got its name in 1866 when two separate communities—Ceneda and Serravalle—were merged following the annexation of the Veneto region to the Kingdom of Italy. The new name honored King Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of unified Italy.

The museum of the battle is located in Ceneda. 

The next morning after visiting the museum, we walked around Serravalle. We passed under Casa Fighera (Porta San Giovanni) and read about the bullet marks on the building that were still clearly visible. While the Battle of Vittorio Veneto was not fought in town (Serravalle), Austrian troops fleeing town continued to fight against the Italian soldiers who chased them together with civilians who had taken up arms. These fights, which resulted in 5 deaths, 14 wounded and the capturing of a thousand prisoners, have left clear machine gun marks on the south-facing façade of Casa Fighera.

After leaving the museum, the same questions popped up about what we learn, what we feel, and what we do after this museum experience, just like they had at the Vajont dam earlier.

One of the people that popped up in the museum is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876 – 1944). We have always liked painters like Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1958) and Umberto Boccioni (1882 – 1916), who were influenced by Marinetti’s Manifesto del Futurismo (1908). By name alone the “manifesto of futurism” sounds attractive and interesting. But upon closer inspection not so much. Two themes and calls to action in the manifesto are the glorification of war as a “purification” and the “sole hygiene of the world,” and urging the demolition of museums and libraries to make way for progress. We would not even be visiting this museum today if Marinetti had his way? Marinetti appeared on an informational panel discussing people who wanted Italy to enter WWI (Interventionalists) and those who didn’t (Neutralists). You can guess what side Marinetti was on.

Beyond the Visit

What did we learn?

We learned that the Vajont dam is an engineering marvel. The Vajont Dam at 262 m (860 ft) was the tallest dam in the world when it was completed in 1960 and still one of the tallest double-curvature arch dams ever built. Its slender, 3.4 m crest width contrasted dramatically with a 27 m base, showcasing an audacious use of space and materials. Rather than relying on sheer mass, the dam’s double-curvature arch transfers water thrust laterally into the canyon walls. This geometry reduces concrete requirements compared to gravity dams and exemplifies advanced structural theory applied in the 1950s.

The dam withstood the wave caused by the landslide and still stands today.

No, the problem wasn’t with the dam but with the behavior of the humans involved. Specifically, with these biases:

• Sunk-cost fallacy. Decision-makers felt compelled to realize returns on sunk investments: halting the reservoir would have meant admitting costly mistakes and delaying power generation.
• Confirmation bias. Cherry-picking data that supported safety.
• Groupthink and political pressure. Engineers and officials rallied around the project’s success to avoid embarrassment.
• Normalcy bias. The unprecedented wouldn’t actually occur.

In the WWI battle museum, we learned about people and places involved, and why this was a turning point in WWI. The museum takes you back to 1917 and 1918 with audio, visuals and artefacts that give you an idea of the hardships and loss of life due to the battle and the larger war. It’s such an effective way of communicating facts and stories. 

The museum calls the objects on display (in Italian) cimeli. A cimelio is a relic (historical object) or an antique or memento (emotional value). In the museum, the cimeli, what we called artefacts, are both historical and emotional.

Some of the same biases mentioned above as well as others were also at play in this decisive battle and the larger war. For example:

• Overconfidence Bias. Despite dwindling morale and resources, Austro-Hungarian commanders underestimated the effectiveness of the reorganized Italian forces and their Allied support. This led to poor defensive preparations and a failure to anticipate the scale of the offensive.
• Groupthink. The high command, dominated by aristocratic and conservative elites, often suppressed dissenting views. Strategic decisions were made in echo chambers, ignoring warnings from field officers about troop fatigue and nationalist unrest within the ranks.
• Status Quo Bias. Even as the empire was fracturing politically, military leaders clung to outdated strategies and rigid hierarchies. They failed to adapt to the rapidly changing battlefield and political landscape, including the rise of independence movements among Czechs, Slovaks, and South Slavs.
• Confirmation Bias. Some commanders interpreted temporary Italian setbacks as proof that their own forces were still capable of holding the line, ignoring broader signs of collapse—like mass desertions and logistical breakdowns.

In short, we learned a lot about biases on this visit to the Vajont Dam and the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.


What did we feel?

In a word, sad. Sad for the loss of lives. Sad for waste of resources in both the war and dam. Sad for the fact that – in our understanding of the Vajont disaster – that there has never been a formal apology that explicitly admits the decision-making errors or psychological biases behind the collapse. Sad for the fact that wars continue today.

Re: war. Yes, things are better on average as Gapminder is quick to point out, but it sure doesn’t feel like that sometimes.

Also, we felt fear. Fear that we are repeating similar errors and biases in major projects and policies today. Case in point, the US (again) pulling out of UNESCO to cite just one small example relevant to our discussion here. How are we supposed to learn if we can't preserve accounts and records of what has happened and that isn’t supported by one of major world powers?

What will we do?

This is the hardest and most embarrassing question to answer. Well, we created this post, and we are thinking about where we might be operating on biases in our everyday lives.

But the nagging question is what we’ll do going forward? Beyond voting for candidates and supporting initiatives we think are good, are we putting any skin in the game? Will we join with others in causes to prevent another manmade disaster and war?

During our visit to Vajont, we heard a story of how an operator was on the crest of the Vajont dam the evening of the disaster. He was using a searchlight to check the status of the mountain at the moment a wave washed him away. While it’s true that operators often used spotlights and visual inspection to check the movement of the mountain, the operator story seems to be an apocryphal story. However, the image stood out in our minds: someone shining a light in the face of an oncoming 250-meter wall of water. Sometimes, we feel that helpless, that overwhelmed by what is coming at us. What do we do?

Photos

   

Left: A memorial to a family killed in the disaster
Center left: Before and after the disaster.

Center right: Looking down from the crest of the dam into the gorge,

Right: Schematic of the dam.

  

Left: Looking up at the crest of the Vajont dam.
Center: Touching the dam where water used to be, but still above the ultimate bottom of the dam by 100 meters or more.

Right: Technical data about the Vajont dam.

  

Left: The dam from below.

Center and right: Walking on the Vajont Dam, Italy.

 

Left: Chiesa di Sant'Antonio da Padova al Colomber - inside. (Vajont Dam)
Right: Chiesa di Sant'Antonio da Padova al Colomber - outside. (Vajont Dam)

 

At the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto - examples of cimeli (war items).

 

Examples of rooms in the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

 

Left: Propaganda poster against the Austro-Hungarian.
Right: The Italian Interventionists and the Neutralists in World War I.

Pointe du Van to Pointe du Raz Hike (France)

Overview ~ Notes ~ Photos

    

  

Top row left: View from trail to Pointe du Raz back toward Plage de la Baie des Trépassés (Plogoff, France).

Top row center: Tracks from Pointe du Van to Pointe du Raz and back.

Top row right: From Pointe du Van looking east into the Bay of Douarnenez.

Bottom row left: Walking south with Ponte du Raz in the distance.

Bottom row center: Ferns, water, sand - Plage de la Baie des Trépassés

Bottom row right: Roof of Chapelle catholique Saint-They de la pointe du Van.

Overview

Length: 15.5 km
Duration: 6 hours, including stop for lunch
Elevation gain: 169 m
Location: France, Brittany, Finistère, Pointe du Raz

Notes

One of the days out of Douarnenez on our 8 days in France was to hike between these two points in Western Brittany, France. We were advised to park at Pointe du Van and walk to Pointe dur Raz and back. Why? Most people arrive at the Pointe du Raz parking point (where there are food and shops) and therefore Pointe du Raz is busier. And that was the case.

We started out around 10 am at the Pointe du Van parking area with just a few other vehicles. When we returned 6 hours later to our car, the place was jam-packed. Besides the parking areas (at both points) and the actual Pointe du Raz viewpoint west toward the Île de Sein and the Chaussée de Sein, we didn’t see that many people on the trails themselves. So, walking was easy.

As you can tell by the small elevation gain, this is mostly a flat hike. That doesn’t mean it’s easy—especially on a hot day. There are few to no trees to be found. The shade of a church or monument is your only respite from the sun. Water sources are facilities at the parking areas and the bars/restaurants along Plage de la Baie des Trépassés, which is midpoint in the hike.

Lunch, and you know there must be lunch with Travelmarx, was at the very fun Monsieur Papier, a bookstore café.

After lunch, we headed back to Pointe du Van passing by the historical site called Blockhaus de Men Tan near Lescoff in Plogoff, Brittany. The site was part of the German radar station QU13 during World War II. Men Tan, meaning ‘stone of fire’ in Breton, was built by the German military in 1944 as part of the Atlantic Wall. The site hosted a Mammut radar, one of the largest and most powerful of its kind at the time. The radar was mounted on a massive L485 (standardized) bunker type, made of over 2500 m³ of concrete.

The Mammut radar installed at Men Tan (station QU13) had a theoretical range of up to 300 km, which could have allowed it to detect Allied movements across the English Channel. However, several factors likely contributed to its failure to detect the Normandy landing including calibration issues, Allies use of jamming and deception tactics, and operational readiness of the station.

Photos

   
Photos of Blockhaus de Men Tan near Lescoff in Plogoff, Brittany.

  

Coastal views between Pointe du Van and Pointe du Raz.

  

Le Vorlen port - high tide and low tide. View from Pointe du Raz - Fern and ocean and Phare de la Vieille and Tourelle de la Plate.

  
Left: E9 European long distance path near Plage de la Baie des Trépassés.

Center: Approaching the Pointe du Raz observation point.

Right: Notre-Dame des Naufragés - Pointe du Raz, France.

  

Left: Bales of hay near Pointe du Van, France.

Center: Plage de la Baie des Trépassés (Plogoff, France).

Right: Chapelle catholique Saint roof-They de la pointe du Van.

 
Lunch at Monsieur Papier (Plogoff, France) - Dessert and plate of smoked fish.

  

Plants spotted: Centaurea, Erica, Rubus.

  

Plants spotted: Eryngium, Eupatorium, Dipsacus.