A Perfect Week in the Dolomites
![Hiking the Cima Cavallaza]()
Hiking the Cima CavallazaLooking back, it seems like quite a number of years since I’ve been actively participating here on SummitPost. Things have gotten quite busy, what with having two kiddos now, so I haven’t had many spare moments to dedicate to writing up ever so important trip reports for the internets. I figured I’d write up a quick account of the hiking/ferrata trip to the Dolomites that my wife and I took to celebrate our 10-year anniversary before I forget too many of the details.
First off, Sonya and I decided to take a mommy and daddy - only trip to Italy – it would be the first time we had left our two kiddos for any extended period of time. Sonya’s parents were around for a while to help out, and we found a brilliantly cheap ($400!) flight round trip from Sweden to import our friend/former au pair Anna as a babysitter for the week of September 4 through September 12. With all the craziness that comes along with having a 2 and a 4 year old, we didn’t really do much planning until the last couple of days before our flight left. Happily, it seems that everything winds down dramatically in the Dolomites at the start of September, so we had no trouble making reservations. It would be my third time visiting the region, so I wasn’t particularly worried about making things work.
Some of the previous accounts of the adventures I’ve shared with my lovely wife have heavily featured weeks on end of arduous journeys filled with bouts of altitude sickness, nausea, political unrest, and good old all-around suffering. This trip included none of those. In fact, it was remarkably idyllic in every conceivable way, which will make for much less interesting reading– so my apologies. But the upside of remarkably idyllic is that it resulted in beyond beautiful views, so that will make up for it. As an added bonus, I didn’t even need to wait the usual six months for Sonya to forget all the suffering that usually happens before bringing up the idea of another adventure!
So, without any further ado, here’s what happened.
Arrival
September 5 - Arrived in Venice. Picked up rental car (hilarious – a Fiat 500. I am almost 6’5”). Left Venice. Drove to Passo Rolle. Rainy, misty mountains. Check into hotel. There are one or maybe two other couples staying there – we have it pretty much to ourselves. Go to sleep.
Passo Rolle and the Pale di San Martino
![Passo di Ball]()
Passo di Ball
September 6 - Wake up to snow on the Pale di San Martino. Take the Rosetta gondola up (see? No suffering!) to the altopiano, where the brilliant grey-white stone is covered in a fresh layer of two inches of snow. It is otherworldly, like snow on the moon. From here, we hike down and across to Paso di Ball with some very easy cable sections as the morning sun melts the snow around us. Have a snack at the pass, turn around, and climb back up approximately three billion switchbacks to the gondola station. Head back down the gondola in the late afternoon. Evening stroll up to the ponds at Baita Segantini to watch the sunset on Cimon della Pala. Gorgeous, unbelievable warm light on the peaks. Perfect in every way.
![Cimon della Pala]()
Cimon della Pala![Cimon della Pala, Sunset]()
Cimon della Pala, Sunset
![Hiking Cima Cavalazza]()
Hiking Cima CavalazzaSeptember 7 – Hike from our hotel on Passo Rolle through the forest to the quaint Rifugio Colbricon. Lunch by the lake. Continue up the ridge to Cima Cavalazza, looking out across to the peaks of the Pale di San Martino group. Hike across the undulating ridge crest in perfect, early fall weather, stopping by the old World War I sites along the way. Dramatic, puffy clouds swirl around the summits of the Pale peaks. As previously mentioned, idyllic. Easily makes it into my top five days of hiking ever. Pleasant hike back down the ridge to Passo Rolle, a quick rest, then back out again for a short hike up the hill to watch the sunset on the peaks. Sunset is again amazing. Back to the hotel for dinner.
![Cima Cavalazza Viewpoint]()
Cima Cavalazza Viewpoint![Pale Reflection]()
Pale Reflection![Pale Sunset Closeup]()
Pale Sunset Closeup![Sunset on the Pale]()
Sunset on the Pale
Paso Falzarego and the Cortina Dolomites
![Ra Gusela]()
Ra Gusela![Climbing Averau]()
Climbing Averau![Averau Panorama]()
Averau Panorama![Descent of the Averau]()
Descent of the AverauSeptember 8 – Drive across Paso Giau, through Cortina, and arrive near Paso Falzarego. Take the short chairlift ride up (again, no suffering!) to Rifugio Scoiattoli. Easy hike up to the base of the Averau via ferrata. Gear up for the short, fun ferrata to the summit of the Averau. Spend an amazing hour on the summit, and then back down the way we came. Wife heads on up the ridge to the summit of Nuvolau, where we will be spending the night in the hut. I head back down to take some late-afternoon pictures of the Cinqui Torri, one of my favorite places in the world. Great photo opportunities, then a quick hike up the mountain to rejoin Sonya at the summit of the Nuvolau. Clouds roll in during our super-tasty hut dinner, then for a brief moment cleared so I could get a quick shot of the Milky Way above the cloud carpet. Pretty much magical.
![Cinqui Torri]()
Cinqui Torri![Averau, from Nuvolau]()
Averau, from Nuvolau![Starlight Above the Dolomites]()
Starlight Above the Dolomites
![Sunrise from the Nuvolau]()
Sunrise from the Nuvolau![That Thing Looks Dangerous]()
That Thing Looks DangerousSeptember 9 – Amazing early morning light across the range from our vantage point on the Nuvolau. Sparse cloudy in the valley below. Quick hike back down to our car, then off through Cortina again towards the Cristallo group for a planned climb on the via ferrata Ivano Dibona. Up the first gondola. Arrive at second “gondola”. Wait. What on Earth is this thing? It appears that they have welded tin space pods left over from the construction of Future Land in Disneyland to a cable sometime in the 1950s and called it a day. Seems legit? NO! This thing was terrifying! It was only rust holding it together! Despite our better judgement, we got in the pod (they don’t slow down at all – you have to run alongside and throw yourself in) and made the terrifying trip up the slope, awaiting the inevitable moment when the pod comes loose and we rocket back down the mountainside. Somehow it held together to the top, where we happily escaped the deathpod. Gear up for ferrata, head up the ladders. Lots of ice up here already makes it challenging and exciting. Cliffhanger bridge is as cool as expected. Exciting climb up to the Cristallino summit as the mist swirls around us. Back down to hot chocolate at the rifugio, because we might as well be happy and full of chocolate before we get back in the deathpod gondola. Back to Refugio Scoiattoli and the Cinqui Torri peaks for the night. Amazing dinner in the hut.
![Crossing Ponte Cristallo]()
Crossing Ponte Cristallo![Panorama of the Cliffhanger Bridge]()
Panorama of the Cliffhanger Bridge![Traversing the ridge below Cristallino]()
Traversing the ridge below Cristallino![Return from Cristallino]()
Return from Cristallino
![Misty Dolomites Peaks]()
Misty Dolomites PeaksOn to Slovenia
September 10 – 12 - We head over to Bled in Slovenia – a return to one of our favorite places we visited in the last big trip through the Julian Alps we took right before our daughter was born (her middle name is Julian in their honor). It is cold and rainy out, so people look at us funny as we get ready to swim. But open water swimming is one of Sonya’s favorite things in the world, so we get in anyways and swim out to the island and back. It is cold and awesome. Next day we hike a bit in the Vrata valley to one of our favorite waterfalls. Then the next day back to Venice to see the city – it’s our first time there, so we spend an afternoon and evening walking along the canals being tourists. Amazing dinner in a quiet plaza, then up early the next morning to catch our flight back home to our kiddos.
In summary, everything was perfect.
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