[VAL GARDENA, ITALIAN DOLOMITES] — Alpe di Siusi (also called Seiser Alm in German) is one of the coolest and easy hikes in the Dolomites. It’s a giant plateau, a big bowl actually, scooped like an amphitheater around the stunning Sassolungo (also called Langkofel) — the big shard of a mountain that shoots up like a shark tooth and central focus and spiritual rock-center for all of Val Gardena.

So as your work your way around this big bowl, your hike is like a Disney seat-on-a-swivel that always rotates to face the main stage.

What makes hiking here so great is the unrivaled views of Sassolungo and the endless rolling carpet of hay fields that flank this big wide bowl-in-the-sky.

You can walk for hours and the view is always jaw-dropping, Sasso staring down at you like a vulture. You’re already at elevation, so what climbing there is is mostly going up and down hills, not mountain sides.

Alpe di Siusi–The Largest High Alpine Meadow in the World

To get your bearings, look at the photo of Sassolungo above as your benchmark, then see it context in the satellite view below to see how massive this alpine meadow is.

Alpe di Siusi is one giant flattop plateau — at 56 square kilometers, it’s the biggest high alpine meadow in the world! — with steep cliffs dropping down to the valleys below, casting shadows over the cute villages of Ortisei, Santa Christina and Selva on one side, Colfosco and Corvara on AltaBadia valley the other side.

With its high altitude, there’s 300 days of sunshine a year. In the winter, this is one big skiing valley with interconnecting lifts to take you back up to start again.

In summer, this is Hayville, with all the small family farms growing rich hay, harvested by hand and scythe, cows grinning at the whole situation.

There are hikes at every level, but mostly it’s about going up, down, across endless Teletubbies-worthy hay meadows. It’s not really hiking, I call it “Mountain Strolling™️”.

There over 450km of hiking trails in summer and seven different lifts, so it’s easy to get around, get lost and find yourself again. If you want more challenging hikes, head up to the craggy foothills around Sassolungo, there are even several via ferrata routes you can take to worry your mother.

What makes it even better is there are 56 little rifugios scattered all over to provide you with sustenance and beer.

We were staying in lovely Ortisei, which is in the steep valley to the left (at 9 o’clock above) so we took the #2 Ortisei-Alpe di Siusi cable car right outside of town that takes you up and over the ridge to the lip overlooking the great big fuzzy green bowl, hay fields and clumps of fir trees as far as the eye can see. Some people start from Castelrotto or drive up to the Compaccio (about 4 o’clock on the right of the photo).

Once you’re up on top, you can follow trails down into the valley below the towering Sassolungo, or some people take a panorama trail that scoots along the high ridges.

At the time (2019), we could find very little information in English, nor specific trails info — it was all “take the panorama trail” or very loose instructions — so we had to guess our way.

Now that the Dolomites have become much more popular, so much more information in English is available. So this post will give you a general overview about where we went and is a little light on specifics, so you’ll have to do your own research.

Hiking All Over Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm

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This was our very first day in the Dolomites, ten of us staying in a cool villa on a hillside, everyone flying in from all over, arriving only the night before. Most had never been to the Dolomites before and some never in Italy. Some were into hiking, some not. That is a hard group to plan for.

So as the host, the pressure to figure everything out started right when we had our first coffee “Whatarewedoinghatarewedoingwhatarewedoing?” as everyone was itching to get out and hike.

The maps and guidebooks I brought had really lousy maps, most with with no elevations, just hand-drawn squiggles on a flat white page, written more for people who had a lay of the land. Which made it hard to tell which was was Up.

Or the big printed map I bought in town looked like this 🤣 🙃 🤪:

Googling trail maps didn’t help much because no map matched the other. That’s the one problem with the Dolomites, each valley or region commissions their own gorgeously illustrated hiking maps, but all oriented around their valley. So one hiking map may be oriented to the North, other maps oriented from other directions, distorted convenient to their town’s origin. So comparing them on where to go was not helpful.

Or the trail guides on all the maps just listed the beginning and ending destinations for each trail, but we had no idea where those places were or which we should take — you had to know where you were going first before finding out where you were going 🙃.

Or one guide would use the Italian name for a destination you’d go to another guide and it uses the German or Ladin name. So being the first day, getting our bearings quickly was nearly impossible.

So we just took a cablecar up and started hiking, hoping to find signs to lead us.

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But soon, the views numbed the stress. We followed the #9 trail and other people down into the valley. Amazing views in all directions. It gets forest-y towards the bottom, only adding to the killer views.

Having reached the bottom of the valley near the Saltria rifugio, trails splayed out in all directions and we didn’t really know where to go because the names on the signs didn’t match our maps and notes, causing more frustration. But here’s another route I recently found.

We found a bus stop of the shuttle that runs up and down the lone road or two that enter the valley. That was a godsend to get us back on top and reset.

The bus times are infrequent, but you can find the schedule at the bus stops. Be careful, there are end-of-the-day cutoff times, so make sure you catch the last one out or you’ll be stuck down in here.

Find a rifugio to catch a beer and wait. The shuttle terminates near Compaccio/Compatch, which is in a little valley, and you can take a short lift back up to the top.

Once up top on the opposite side of the valley, the soaring Schlern mountain dominates your new view. Farmers right next to you, cutting and stacking their hay.

All over the amphitheater around you are trails leading in different directions and rifugi scattered about, with lunch staring at you from all directions. Take your pick, they’ll all be good.

Stop for Lunch at the Alpenhotel Panorama Rifugio

We saw the Alpenhotel Panorama on a ridge — you can even get rooms here — and decided to head over for a nice long lunch. Mountains all around.

There is a circular panorama trail that follows all along the top of the bowl, but for some reason we couldn’t find it. We followed a path down, taking the 6 trail down to the road that comes from Compaccio, knowing a shuttle would eventually come shuttling by. If there are some in your group that want to bail, this is a good spot to bail.

As you can see from all the pics, Sassolungo is always there brooding down on you like Sam Eagle on The Muppets. So you pretty much move in a 3/4 of a circle, pivoting around its big beak, seeing it from all different angles and changes in light.

Have a Beer and an Espresso at Baita Sanon

But, like all throughout the Dolomites, there’s always a rifugio right where you want it to be, need it to be, to lay back, quaff a Først and smile at the view.

Like the Baita Sanon, a big open deck with wide open views for miles. After chilling for a while here, you can take a short walk up to the Sonne chairlift #4 and let it whisk you to the top ridge to catch the #2 gondola back down to Ortisei.

This is The View We Came For

Words and photos cannot express how cool this view is. You can see the reflection in the cablecar building how dominate these mountain views are, just sitting here in the mountain top cafe. Even if you don’t want to hike, you can take the cablecar up to the decent little cafe and sit and get these same views.

— Last Visited July 2019 —

More Information on Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm

Here’s a link to all my Dolomite posts here. Two other great hikes in Val Gardena. A post about San Cassiano, the perfect base to explore AltaBadia. Three big hikes in AltaBadia. A long hike in the Sennes-Fanes-Braies Natural Park. And a post about a cool hike in the Brenta Dolomites…and the cool hotel you should definitley stay at.

Here’s the very good Val Gardena website, a little light on details, but you can find good info. Here’s a link to a high-res map I used below.

Here’s a great rundown of all the hikes on Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm. Wish we had it when we were there. The amount of info gets better every year. Here’s more info on different hikes and details in Val Gardena.

Here’s what I was talking about earlier: This is the same area, but from a different orientation, as if you were coming from Castelrotto. I actually think this angle is a little more accurate in depicting the elevation changes in the bowl. Man, I wish we had either of these maps when we were hiking.