After about 30 minutes of this tedious descent, the trail's grade started to ease, and the track started to head off, away from the creek bed, across some small open meadows. Crossings of the creek, when they occurred, were now bridged. The trail then entered a stretch of forest and then crossed one more time, on a final larger bridge. On the other side the trail widened to an actual forest road (but was still signed as trail 580).
The rest of the walk down into the town of Mazzin was brain-dead simple: just walk down what was essentially a single-lane forest road. In one place it was washed out but the footing across that section was still quite good. We were on pace for a mid-afternoon arrival time, so our objective in that respect had been achieved.
Just after 3pm, we could see the roofs of a town ahead, and soon, we were walking down narrow alleys and between old, restored swiss-style alpine buildings. We stopped briefly at a town water fountain in a small piazza, then continued for another few minutes to the hotel we had booked (the Hotel Piz Boe). I was glad to see the rental car I had hurredly parked three days prior was there and unmolested. We went inside and checked in. The hotel gave us a very nice room overlooking the main road and valley. I had already contacted the Hatkos, and soon they had arrived and had set up shop in the room adjacent to us. Reunited!
We spent the rest of the day in Mazzin repackaging, doing chores (like going into town and doing laundry), and getting ready for the final two-day outing of our trip. Dinner was at
Happy Days Fast Food - directly across from the hotel. Pretty inventive and good food for a "fast food" place. (
Menu)
