Skip to content

Planning my 2022 vacation came up with the idea of going to the Dolomites and doing the Alta via 1, a traditional crossing located in the Alps in northern Italy on the border with Austria.

This trekking is recommended for experienced people, as there are many climbs and descents at high altitude and fantastic landscapes.

Alta Via 1 starts at Lago di Braies and ends at Belluno with a length of 100 to 130 km depending on the variants you choose, during the route you will admire the Lagazuoi massif, Mount Marmolada, Cinque Torri and many others, a challenging trail, but with the comfortable structure of mountain huts.

There are many variants with varying degrees of difficulty. The hardest ones are the ones with via ferratas.

Alta via 1 is first and foremost a walk, without glaciers or climbing, some sections with via ferratas that are more difficult but can be avoided using some variant.

There are some sections where the path crosses rocky terrain, stretches of loose terrain, steep and well exposed. And for those who are afraid of exposure, like me, they are quite challenging, but nothing that, after some basic fear and stress, cannot be overcome.

As we wanted a quieter trail, we chose to avoid the via ferratas, both because of the difficulty and the weight savings, as we won’t need to take our equipment.

It is necessary to reserve the shelters, to guarantee the resting place. We found people doing without reservation, but some had problems with not finding a place.

As we couldn’t book the initial shelters, we made a variant for the first 3 days.

Our script looked like this:

Day 1 – Venice to Cortina D’ampezzo to Fiames – Arrival at the trailhead.Day 2 – Fiames to the Pomedes refuge.Day 3 – Pomedes Refuge – Cinque Torri – Pomedes.Day 4 – Refugio Pomedes to Forcella del Bos – PomedesDay 5 – Refugio Pomedes – Cinque Torri to Novlauu.Day 6 – Nuvolau Refuge to Passo Staulanza.Day 7 – Refugio Staulanza al Sonino al ColdaiDay 8 – Rest and climb to the top of ColdaiDay 9 – Refugio Sonino al Coldai to Refugio VazzolerDay 10 – Refuge Vazzoler to Carestiato.Day 11 – Refuge Carestiato to Sommariva.Day 12 – Somariva Refuge to Bianchet Refuge.

Day 13 – Refugio Bianchet – Pisa – Belluno and Venice.

Here our journey really began.

We left Fiames at 8 o’clock, took the trail along the side of the road until we passed the international camping Olympia, which is on the other side of the river, crossing the bridge and then going up to the left.

The trail goes up slowly until you reach Piè Tofana , which is the base of the first cable car.

We continue to the right on trail 407, after crossing the ski slope, we turn left onto the Sentiero dei Camosci trail 405 to the Duca d’Aosta refuge (2100 m).

We stop for a nice lunch with wine.

Until now I didn’t know, but the quality and quantity of food in the refuges would be one of the highlights of this journey.

With renewed energy, we continued to climb along trail 420 to the Pomedes refuge.

On this day, an altitude gain of 1000 meters had been gained, but it was worth it for the wonderful view from the Pomedes refuge.

We had a 270 degree view across the Cortina valley to the Cinque Torri, Nuvolau and Averau huts.