TAKE A LONG HIKE THROUGH ALTA BADIA IN THE ITALIAN DOLOMITES

by YouShouldGoHere
September 6, 2015
in Do This, Go Here
2

[VAL BADIA, ITALY] — The Dolomites are aren’t just one range, but dozens. Kinda confusing, especially for me, to piece it all together. It’s all called “Dolomites” or “Alto Adige” and “Süd Tyrol” … and in a part of Italy that was once part of Austria. So the names are always in three languages. But no matter what you call it, go there.

I’ve previously posted pics from the Brenta range. These are just from Val Badia (or also called Alta Badia!), a spectacular valley that is just a fraction of the Dolomites greatness. I can’t wait to go back and figure out the rest. I recommend basing out of the cute as a button San Cassiano village, a glamorous little ski village, but in the summer is a fraction of the price. Go for a week or more. You can spend that in a single valley. Go for two or more and explore the other ranges.

This post focuses on just a single long, 7-9 hour hike through the great Fanes-Senes-Braies Nature Reserve. I wanted to blow this out a little to show you how spectacular hiking is in the Dolomiti. One long hike, hut to hut and town to town, across a broad mountain plateau and a marching line of stupendous mountains.

I was in disbelief when I was loading up my backpack with water and sandwiches when the owner of my hotel — the super-helpful Hugo Pizzinini of the world famous Rosa Alpina hotel in San Cassiano — said “you don’t need to bring water, there is water along the way. And great food. Grabbing my map, he said “You can stop here, here and here for water. Here for a beer. This is the rifugio with the best food.” Living near the Rocky Mountains, where you have to pack everything you need, this was an incredulous thought. But just watch and see below. “You can then hike back down to this trail and call us and we’ll come pick you up and go get your car.” Now that’s amazing service.

You park your car at a roomy parking lot at one end of the trail, then an intense hour or so hike straight up the Fanes plateau. From there there are dozens of spinoff trails to other valleys, great rifugi to stop, refresh and keep going. There are details under each picture that tell the rest of the story. CLICK ON A PICTURE TO OPEN UP THE GALLERY.

: This is where you start, a car park right by the Capanna Alpina restaurant. Nice clean bathrooms and you can load up with a snack or water if you want.

: On the 8-9 hour #11 trail through the Fanes-Senes-Braies Nature Reserve you climb for about one hour, pretty straight up, until you hit a grand plateau that will be your guide for the day.

: Once you get up top, the views to the other valleys and ranges are just as good as the hike.

: Once you’re up to the plateau, it’s pretty easy and fast walking.

: Man, there sure was a lot going on when this stuff was being born…

: The first rifugio, Malga Gran Fanes is a small, family-run hut serving charcuterie, beer, water and even espresso. A less crowded stop.

: What better way to break up a hike than a beer and then an espresso chaser before continuing on?

: Boy was I tempted to divert down this valley.. but this would take me to Cortina

: the Fanes rifugio is a hopping bar. I couldn’t believe it. Actually, with a wait to get it. All above treeline.

: Just across the valley, another refuge, Lavarela.

: I continued on to the Lavarela rifugio, which Hugo said had better food. It was also packed with sweaty smiling people. I opted for a pretty simple, but totally delicious sausage and radler. And instead of typical extortion most mountain places in the U.S. charge. all this, plus a liter of water and doppio espresso for under 15 euros. I ate too much.

: This took about an hour to cross over to those mountains. About halfway a tremendous thunderstorm came over, exposed to lightning that was clapping about every two minutes. I was toally exposed, no tree or overhang forever. I was nervous

: At this point the trail roller coasters up and down hillocks.

: I would like to personally thank whoever hand-painted the thousands of totally visible trail markings. I swear, these are about every 20 yards and totally make the scramble clear on where you need to go. Gracie. Mille!

: After hitting the top of the pass, this is what you see — a beautiful town far away and this trechorous scree trail at a 40% angle. It was babysteps for an hour and I nearly fell a dozen times. Can you see it in hte lower middle?

: This was damn scary. And not easy. It was baby steps the whole way, yet still slipping and sliding. Not much to traction on here.

: From the 12, you hook up to the 15 that will take you down to San Cassiano and pass this gorgeous spot that makes the nine hours worthwhile. You can also hike up to this point in an hour and a half from San Cassiano. I highly recommend the latter.

: I swear they must have filmed Teletubbies here.

: You can drink the water everywhere. In these conveniently spaced springs. Best drink of water, ever. And fun.

: There are lots of towns along the Val Badia with hundreds of great places to stay. But I loved staying in the cute little alpine village of San Cassiano.

: You can see how the Val Badia is just a fraction of the great Dolomites. The lower righthand corner.

: You can see how big the Dolomites actually are. These are just a section of it. The green box is the Brenta range, from earlier posts. These pics are just from the valley in the red box. The Val Badia.

IMG_3206 from YouShouldGoHere on Vimeo.

I thought I was almost down…then saw what I still had to go through…

Here’s a little movie overview of a week in hiking in the Sud Tyrol, or Italian Dolomites:

Here’s an AWESOME article in the NY Times about hiking in the same general area. I couldn’t believe it posted two weeks after I returned! I think the author took the exact same hike within a week or two of when I was there. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/travel/italy-dolomites-hiking-trekking-camping.html