Via Guitcillo da Montanara MTB

This is another farm road climbing from the foothills high up to the Cansiglio.  Like the others it's crazily steep, remote and beautiful.  Via Guitcillo da Montanara starts in Montaner, a short, steep climb from the plain near Sarmede itself.  The concrete roadway steepens immediately and stays that way more or less continuously for 4 or 5 km.  At first I stopped at most of the switchback ends to pant and moan, but after a while I started going longer between stops, which felt like an accomplishment even in 24-36 gear.  The gradient finally slackens above 800 meters and then pavement ends.  In a few minutes you reach a farmhouse and the surface turns to grass.  This was very pleasant, like the grassy rides through English woods.  Unfortunately the various paths I had read about all ended in dense thickets of thorny underbrush and turned me back.  I even tried going back to the farmhouse and heading up the grassy ride west of there,  but it turned into steep karst single track.  So I decided to roll back down the hill and try this from the top next time.  The top end of the trail apparently departs from the Vittorio Veneto- Cansiglio road  around 900 meters.  Maybe in a few weeks.

Looking down at Montaner's church

Steep steep steep

The hillside trees are flowering and sprouting leaves 

This is the farmhouse at 830m where the road faded out

Orchard and pens (for goats?) at farmhouse

The woods and mountains to the west

Col Visentin  to left of spruce, Monte Pizzoc to the right