Walking in the Sudtirol Dolomites

"I don’t mind going walking, but I don’t want to camp, climb or carry anything” I was instructed. And so began our quest for a suitable holiday. My parents had recently returned from a walking holiday with a company that organised hotels, transport of baggage between the hotels (whilst you walked), maps and itineraries. They offered a variety of locations to choose from, with different levels of walking difficulty. This sounded like it might fit the bill perfectly. It would, of course, be somewhat more expensive than I am accustomed to, being more used to dossing in lay-bys, drinking from streams and eating budget supermarket foods. However, a bit of luxury would earn me brownie points for future climbing trips where I could revert to my old habits. I think my brownie point account was already somewhat in arrears!

One of the most mountainous and strenuous options was the Sudtirol Dolomites, which just happened to be the walk my parents had returned from. I’d always fancied a bit of Dolomite action, though until now only in a climbing context. More specifically I’d only really thought of the area in terms of the “Comici Route” on the Cima Grande, part of my pipe dream of climbing the 6 classic North Faces of the Alps (one would be a start!). A bit narrow minded of me really, and no doubt the reason I’d never been there, opting instead to go to the “proper” Alps. Perhaps this would be the ideal opportunity to explore some of the area.

A cheap flight to Brescia in Northern Italy, followed by a few hours in a hire car took us to our first hotel in Castelrotto. What a great little place and fabulous hotel. We might have been a bit late in the year to get the full glory of the colourful meadows, but the village was a picture, an artist’s dream, with beautiful buildings and impressive views up to the mountains. We arrived in plenty of time to familiarise ourselves with the place where I quickly learnt that my limited Italian would be of little use. Nevermind, Jo would just have to use her German to order the beers!

The recommended walks for the first couple of days were low-level acclimatisers, hors d’œuvres to the mountain walking. The first day’s outing was pleasant but rather short lived, thus giving us plenty of time to savour the delights of the local bars and shops, and further explore the village. The following day’s walk was a substantial increase in distance taking us through Santo Valentino, Siusi, Santo Constantino, Fiè, and Bad Ratzes. The lengthier duration of the walk was welcome, and long walks were to become the trend throughout the rest of our stay. However, the amount the distances increased was largely of our own doing, extending the walks so as to include as many points of interest as possible. I think, perhaps, we over-extended ourselves a little on that second day, and we were both quite relieved to conclude the day in the bar again, resting weary feet from the pounding they had received on the day’s numerous roads. The dominant theme of these first couple of walks seemed to be a proximity to roads and villages, many pretty little churches, and several stretches through woods where you could not fully appreciate the views. Still, these introductory days had been very enjoyable, and we would be heading up into the mountains tomorrow.

A few hours’ walk took us to our next hotel via the Bullacia (2130m), with some assistance from a chair lift. Beautiful views opened up of the range of mountains we were to be walking amongst for the next few days, and provided us with a new perspective of where we had previously been. We could see the Sciliar, Sasso Lungo, Odle, Brenta and Marmolada groups of mountains, the Val Gardena, and the Alpe di Siusi to which we headed following a couple of hut stops for food and beer. Our immediate reaction to the new hotel in Compatsch was not as favourable as the first one, being obscured by shops and bus stops, but once we were inside it was very pleasant and the food, facilities and staff more than compensated for the exterior of the building. It was quite a puzzler working out how to use all the sauna and steam bath equipment, taxing the mind whilst relaxing the body!

The walk I had most looked forward to was next, with a long anticipated hike up the Sciliar (2564m). This mountain had dominated the skyline from below, disguising its less precipitous flanks with its sheer, West face. The walk up was steep, but we felt fit and seemed to be overtaking everybody else on the mountain. Always a nice feeling! An early plateau gave way to steep zigzags, followed by another plateau to an Italian Alpine Club (CAI) hut, Rifugio Bolzano, near the summit. Having refreshed ourselves with soup and beer it was time to bag the summit where new views materialised of the Catinaccio Dolomites, well known to climbers for their “Vajolet Towers”. The recommended route from here was more or less straight back where we had come from, and neither of us fancied retracing our steps. After all we were only here for a limited time, it was relatively early in the day, and as the weather forecast for tomorrow was not promising we wanted to explore as much of the area as possible. We decided on an alternative, following a long ridge to the next hut several kilometres away, bypassing the via ferrata section of the Denti di Terrarossa on the way, and descending steep scree slopes back towards the hotel. The grassy ridge was superb, offering fantastic and ethereal views between wisps of cloud. A drop down into the upper reaches of a spectacular valley brought us back into sheltered sun, and we were soon drinking more beer in the next hut, Alpe di Tires, relaxing as other walkers wandered past. The steep walk down scree (that was recommended as tomorrow’s route up) was soon dispatched, and a queue of nervous walkers formed behind us having not wanted to commit themselves to the descent until they saw somebody else, us, go first. I suppose it did look rather steep and forbidding in the rapidly thickening mist - until you started down!

Our decision to continue along the ridge was proved to be a wise one when, on the next day, the weather deteriorated to heavy rain, and thick cloud enveloped the mountains we had walked upon. A very short walk took us to our final hotel in Saltria by 10.00 am, and being in a fairly remote area by now there would be little to do and so we decided to briefly escape to civilisation. An hour and a half’s walk took us to a cable car, in turn dispatching us down to Ortisei in the Val Gardena where we were able to relax in cafes and bars for a few hours out of the torrential rain. The rain continued throughout the return to our hotel and well into the night, but we were astonished the next morning to see what the weather was doing. We woke up on this, our last, day of walking, bright sun streaking through the curtains, but when we looked through the windows we could see that the whole landscape had been transformed during the night. At least a foot of snow had settled all around, much more up in the mountains. Beautiful!

Uncertain what we would be able to do, we decided to walk up to the Sasso Piatto (adjoining the Sasso Lungo) as had previously been our intention, and see what happened. Though the walking was hard at times, the going was not too bad, and the scenery was spectacular. Passing an open-air wedding ceremony on the way up we soon arrived in the gathering cloud at the Rifugio Sasso Piatto for much needed coffee. We decided against the ascent of the Sasso Piatto itself, a straightforward route in dry weather but an altogether different proposition in deep snow, and one that a number of people were struggling with and retreating from. Instead, glad of the extra clothing we had brought with us, we decided to traverse a normally grassy ridge to the next hut for lunch. No sooner had we left the Rifugio Sasso Piatto than the clouds disappeared once more, affording us un-obscured views for the remainder of this last walk. The ridge afforded us really dramatic views of the nearest snowy peaks and the next hut provided us with a well-earned lunch, one that was so good we had it twice! Finally we returned to the hotel for our last night, dodging the huge lumps of hard snow and ice falling out of the rapidly thawing firtrees. What a way to finish our holiday that would be.

We really felt privileged to have timed our mountain walks around the good weather so well, and to have seen the area in all its guises, four seasons in a week.

Notes:

Places to stay – There are plenty of hotels in the area but most look quite expensive. For those on a smaller budget, or who prefer to camp, there is a campsite near Fiè, which is within easy travel of the mountains. There were no campsites up on the Alpe di Siusi.

Language – The main language used in this area is German, despite the fact that this is part of Italy. Historical reasons are behind this in as much as most of the area has only been part of Italy since 1919, previously being part of Austria.

Place Names – Similar to Wales, most places have 2 names, one German and one Italian, and many signs are bilingual. Some names worth noting from the article are as follows: