Hiking the Alta Via 1: Averau to Coldai

January 24, 2026January 5, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

After a fun night at Averau, we decided to start Day 5 with a hike up to Rifugio Nuvolau, which is the oldest rifugio on the Alta Via 1. You can see Nuvolau from Averau, so it’s only an extra 1km of hiking, though it does add an extra 175m of elevation gain. We left our packs at Averau and hiked up to the top to enjoy the view and a sweet treat. Nuvolau doesn’t have any road access, so while the other huts can get their supplies delivered by car, Nuvolau uses a cable system to haul supplies up and down the mountain. As a result, it’s a much smaller hut, so I didn’t mind that we stayed at Averau.

Since it was early morning, it wasn’t crowded at Nuvolau, but it was a weekend, so the rest of the trail was very busy. The main attraction in this area is Cinque Torri, which is a small collection of 5 peaks that seem to be popular among both day hikers and climbers. We were a little bit surprised by Cinque Torri, which we could see from the top of Nuvolau. It’s a cool collection of rock features, but it’s so small in comparison to Tre Cime, that it kind of failed to impress us. Which goes to show how quickly you can get used to the stunning scenery. Less than a week in the Dolomites, and we were already minimalizing the views!

As we hiked back down to Averau to pick up our bags, there were quite a few day hikers starting their hike. From Averau, you hike downhill for approximately 1.5km to get to Rifugio Scoiattoli. This rifugio is serviced by a gondola that goes back to the main highway, so this is how most of the day hikers were accessing the area. It’s a pretty concentrated area for attractions – in addition to Rifugio Scoiattoli, Averau, and Nuvolau, there’s also Rifugio Cinque Torri, which is located right underneath Cinque Torri (less than 1km from Scoiattoli). Combined with the nice weekend weather, the area was very crowded.

We opted not to spend very much time at Cinque Torri, instead we just watched some of the climbers for a bit before continuing on. The crowds almost immediately dissipated as we continued our hike towards our next rifugio: Rifugio Croda da Lago. At the time, I didn’t realize that we were actually diverging from the traditional Alta Via 1 trail at this point (as well as on the previous day). While we had accessed Averau through Passo Falzarego, the traditional trail actually continued through Forcella col dei Bos on the north side of the highway, eventually crossing back over and passing through Cinque Torri on the way to Averau. From Averau, the traditional trail then continued south through Passo Giau on onwards.

Rifugio Croda da Lago wasn’t on the traditional trail route, so it would have added distance for us to go through Passo Giau, so I don’t mind that we took a more direct route to get there. Over the years, the trail has developed lots of alternative sections. From what I understand – these trails are still considered the Alta Via 1, they’re just not the original route. All the trails in the region are beautiful, so I wouldn’t worry too much about following the traditional route.

One of the benefits of our route for Day 5 was that we finally got to do a bit of forest walking. It was another hot and sunny day, so it was nice to have a bit of shade for a change. Once we left Cinque Torri, the trail hikes east down to highway SP638. There weren’t a lot of people on the trail down to the highway, but there was a lot of cars parked on the road and more hikers on the trail towards Croda da Lago, so that seemed to be a popular trail for day hiking as well.

The trail is mostly through the woods – it’s a gentle uphill along the river for the first section, but then it gets steeper as you ascend to a viewpoint that looks out towards Cortina. We stopped for a few breaks along the way and I had a set back when I realized I had lost the mouthpiece to my water bladder somewhere along the trail. I backtracked one section of the trail to look for it, but I didn’t have any luck, so I had to switch to using a water bottle for the rest of the trip.

It was a hot climb up to the viewpoint, but then we had a nice meandering walk through a larch forest to get to Croda da Lago, which is located on Lago Federa. It’s a really pretty lake, surrounded by steep mountains on the west side, with the rifugio at the far south end. It was incredibly busy with day hikers when we arrived at the lake. Terrain-wise, it was a pretty reasonable day on the trail, as we’d only hiked 12km and 600m of elevation, so we arrived early in the afternoon.

Kristine was really keen to just get to the rifugio, but I wanted to go for a swim, so she continued on while I looked for somewhere to get in the water. The problem is that the lake is a bit swampy along the edges and it was really hard to find anywhere that looked appealing to walk in (even though the water itself looked very inviting). Eventually, I was able to bushwack down to a big rock that I could jump off, but I had to swim quickly because I was losing the sun behind the mountains and it cools off a lot once the sun goes down. I managed to slip in for a dip just before losing the light, but like many of the other lakes, it wasn’t the nicest swim as it had a very mucky bottom.

Croda da Lago was definitely not our favourite rifugio. In fact, the accommodations definitely went downhill after leaving Averau and we learned how spoiled we’d really been earlier in the trip. It was still much nicer than the camping I do in Canada, but apparently we’d quickly gotten used to the amenities and we were a bit bummed to lose them. We were in a 6 person dorm for the evening, but there ended up only being 3 of us for the night. It could have been great, but this was the first time we had an un-friendly dormmate and we were annoyed to discover that there were no chargers inside the bedrooms, nor were there free showers.

There was however, a sauna! I signed up for a spot before suppertime and enjoyed some relaxation time in the heat. I was a little bit unsure about the norms for sauna in Italy though. Most of my sauna experience was in Finland, which definitely loves sauna. I’d only done wet sauna in Finland and everyone at this sauna was doing dry sauna, which I didn’t really like. I’m not sure if this is standard for the area or if it was user error, as everyone in there was a tourist. There was a cold plunge pool outside as well, so I went back and forth between both.

Dinner was nice, but overall we noted that the owners of this rifugio just didn’t seem to care about the little details as much as the other rifugios. For example, in addition to not having chargers in the room or free showers, they skipped out on other amenities, like a boot room and drying racks, which meant if you have any wet gear, it’s going to stay wet (and smelly). Overall, the little things add up to detract from the overall experience, so it wasn’t our favourite hut, but I do feel a bit silly to be complaining about it.

Day 6 was a bit of a mixed bag. It was the last day of nice weather, but we had one of our longer days on the trail, needing to cover 17km and 800m of elevation. Like I mentioned in my last post, I was really feeling great on this hike and I was still enjoying the terrain, but I think Kristine started to hit a wall on Day 6. She did fine with the trail, but overall seemed ready to be done with the hike, which I can get when you’re 6 days in. We started with a hike up Forcella Ambrizzola, which was about 2km of uphill from the lake, but fortunately, not too steep. After that, we had a lot of downhill to get to Rifugio Citta di Fiume and Rifugio Staulanza, which is located at Passo Staulanza along the highway.

I really loved this section of trail. We were back in the alpine and wandered along wide trail through the mountains before heading back into the trees to get to Citta di Fiume. Kristine continued on ahead of me through this section, while I took a lot of photos along the way. We decided to skip Citta di Fiume and instead, continued hiking another few kilometres to get down to the highway. The big attraction along this part of the trail is Mount Pelmo, which is a huge monolith of a mountain that dominates the skyline. There’s a really cool section of the trail after Citta di Fiume where you hike across the base of Mount Pelmo, but we could also see all the way back to where we’d started the trail earlier that morning. It’s neat to be able to look back on how far you’ve come!

Passo Staulanza is really more of a roadside stop, so I’m glad we didn’t stay at that rifugio. I’d read somewhere online that Staulanza had the best hot chocolate, but I have no idea where I read it or how old the information was, because it didn’t seem to be a thing. It was the main reason we’d pushed through to Staulanza, so we decided to stop for lunch instead. We’d knocked out 10.5km of our 17km day, so we were feeling pretty good, although apprehensive about a big climb in the afternoon.

The first section of trail after Staulanza really sucks because you have to hike along the road for 1km and there’s no trail and very little shoulder, so make sure you hike on the opposite side of the road and exercise caution. Eventually you hit a junction and have to hike along an old dirt road to a cafe before you can meet up with the trail again. This is where the trail starts to go uphill again and there’s a lot of elevation gain before we arrived at our final destination at Refugio Coldai.

The hike up from the cafe is particularly steep, though it was the first section of trail where I was reminded that Fall would soon be here. Some of the trees and shrubs were starting to change colour and there was a beautiful view back toward Mount Pelmo. Eventually you crest the first hill and you have a small bit of downhill before the final push to Coldai. There’s a small lake next to the refugio, Lago di Coldai, that also seemed to be a popular day hiking destination, so there were a lot of people along the trail.

The last push to Coldai is pretty rough. It’s very steep, although it is possible to switchback up the mountain. Europeans really are built differently because even though the trail provided a rare opportunity to switchback (making the ascent easier), there was still so much erosion where people have created shortcuts to bypass the switchbacks and hike directly up the mountain. We didn’t take any of the shortcuts, as the switchbacks were still steep enough in my opinion!

The other thing that surprised me is the seeming lack of any kind of trail etiquette on crowded trails. At home, it’s pretty well accepted that when passing on narrow trails, you always give the right of way to the person hiking uphill, and when on flat terrain, you always give the right of way to the person with the bigger pack. Given that we were backpacking uphill, we should have always had the right of way, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I don’t think a single one of the hundreds of day hikers I passed (who were coming down the trail) gave me the right of way. When you’re already struggling uphill, it gets really annoying when there’s a constant stream of people pushing their way past you. I’m not sure if this is just a cultural difference and I needed to get over it… I could overlook it on most sections of the trail, but it really bothered me at this point.

Eventually we made it to the top and discovered that Coldai had a similar approach to management as Croda da Lago, but I was more accepting of it because Coldai was a very remote hut. Similar to Nuvolau, it didn’t have any roads and was only serviced by a small cable trolley, so I was understand that it would be more challenging to provide services. We were again assigned to a 6-person dorm with only 3 people, but our dormmate was much more friendly. He was visiting from Germany to hike the via ferrata’s and we had a nice chat about our respective trips and the differences between hiking in Europe and Canada.

Suppertime was a bit later at Coldai and the weather was supposed to change the following day, so we decided to hike the 500m up to Lago di Coldai before dinner. It was such a great decision because the conditions at the lake were phenomenal! It was around 6pm, so almost all of the day hikers had left and the lake was pretty empty. You could tell the weather was starting to change for the first time in 6 days because the clouds started to roll in, which made for the most dramatic formations around the mountain peaks. The lake was really beautiful and it ended up being one of my favourite views of the entire trip, so of course, I had to go for one last swim!

We returned to the Rifugio feeling pretty satisfied with the views and the weather over the past week. We enjoyed dinner before heading to bed early before our last full day on the trail. We’d have to make some difficult decisions the following day about what to do about an incoming rainstorm, but more on that in my final post next week!

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Fanes to Averau

January 10, 2026January 5, 2026 / Maria / 2 Comments

Welcome back to my trail report series on the week I spent hiking the Alta Via 1 in the Italian Dolomites. Last week I posted about the start of the trail and the first 20km of hiking between Lago di Braies and Rifugio Fanes. On Day 3, we left Fanes in the early morning to start our hike up to the top of Forcella dl Lech, one of the largest passes on the trail. This section of trail can sometimes be difficult to access if there’s poor weather due to exposure, but we had great condition and no concerns as we made our approach!

This was probably my favourite day on the trail. We were among the last hikers to leave the rifugio in the morning, but we only had 10km and 500m of elevation gain ahead of us, so we were feeling positive. It was quite chilly when we started off, but we started off with a short, but steep, climb up to the alpine plateau, which really warmed us up. The sun came out soon after and there were lots of horses grazing in the meadows, so Kristine spent some time with them, while I continued on to a small lake called Lago di Lemo. There’s no big lakes on the Alta Via 1, aside from Lago di Braies, so the opportunities for swimming were limited, but I was determined to swim in as many as possible.

There was no one around, so I hurried off to the lake and was able to get in a quick skinny dip before any other hikers showed up. A lot of the “lakes” are really just tarns, so some are quite shallow or don’t have the best water quality, but this one was really nice. We’d barely started hiking though, so we didn’t linger and continued on to a small cafe located in the valley. We debated stopping for a snack, but it was still quite early and neither of us were hungry, so we continued on through the valley.

There were lots of cows hanging out in the meadows, which Kristine loved, but we kept our distance because one of the mama’s was getting a bit worked up over her calf running off without her. For the most part, the livestock is harmless, but you should still respect them and maintain a safe distance. A man was trampled to death by a cow on a nearby hike previous to our trip, so accidents do happen.

Once we reached the end of the valley, the trail started to get a lot more crowded. The Pass is a popular day hike that can be done from the small town of Sciare, so we encountered a lot more hikers. When you reach the end of the valley, the trail starts to climb and you gain 400m of elevation over ~2.5km. At first it’s a more gentle ascent, but it gets steeper as you go. While we were hiking through the valley, we spotted the pass off in the distance and joked about what a brutal hike that would be. Then we started hiking up the mountainside and quickly realized it’s where we were headed!

Honestly, I loved this part of the hike. It was tiring, but the views were phenomenal! In my opinion, the trail up to the top of the pass had some of the best views of the trip. Plus, we really lucked out with the weather and it was a gorgeous sunny day. It made it a bit hot for hiking, but there was a nice breeze from the ridge. We stopped partway up for a snack and to enjoy the view, then continued on for another section of trail before stopping for lunch. I’d been planning to eat my sandwich at the top of the pass, but I got pretty hungry as we hiked and decided to just enjoy the view and eat it on the side of the mountain. There are no bad decisions on when to stop because the entire trail is stunning!

The last push to the top is quite steep and has lots of loose rock, but eventually you reach the gap in the mountain that forms the pass. The trail down the other side appears to disappear into nothing, so we hung out for a little bit, but didn’t stay too long because it was cold and windy at the top.

All I can really say about this pass is – thank goodness we were hiking this trail south! While the hike up the pass felt steep, it’s really nothing compared to the hike down. The downhill portion of the hike is almost vertical through engineered switchbacks that were built up into staircases at some point in the region’s history. I’d guess during one of the world wars, as there was lots of war infrastructure and tunnel systems around this part of the trail.

The backside of the pass involves hiking down 300m over less than a kilometre, making it twice as steep as the hike up. I was worried about my knees, which are sensitive to downhill, but the elevation loss is over such a short period of time, that they held up pretty well. Though we caught up with our American friend from Fanes and she was definitely struggling.

The views across to the other side of the trail were just as stunning as the hike up in the morning. From the pass, you can see straight across to Rifugio Lagazuoi, which is one of the most iconic Rifugios on the trail. We weren’t lucky enough to score reservations at Lagazuoi, which was disappointing, but a bit of a relief when we realized we didn’t have to hike up the other side that day.

The real reward of this part of the trail was that there’s another small lake at the base of the pass. Kristine doesn’t like cold water, so she didn’t participate in any of my swims, but there was no way I was hiking down that pass, staring at the lake the entire time, without swimming in it at the bottom! Especially because it was so warm in the afternoon. It was a really small water body and it wasn’t very deep, but it was still refreshing.

It was after my swim that we realized our next hut, Rifugio Scotoni, required hiking downhill another 150m. It doesn’t sound like a lot of elevation after everything else we’d already done, but it was disappointing because it was located off the trail, so we were going to have to start the next morning with a 150m climb uphill, before doing another 550m of uphill to Lagazuoi. At first, we were a bit disappointed with Rifugio Scotoni, mostly because we had wanted to be staying at the iconic Lagazuoi hut, but it grew on us. It was much less busy than Lagazuoi, and it had alpacas, which Kristine quickly befriended.

We were assigned a 4-bed dorm, which we shared with two German guys. We enjoyed the afternoon hanging out at the bar and soaking in the sun, although the experience was slightly ruined by a very loud French group, who we avoided all evening because one of the guys was wearing a shirt that said “51st State”, with the American flag inside a maple leaf. So we stewed and gave them mean glares like the non-confrontational Canadians we are (well, I am, Kristine can be pretty confrontational, lol, but there were at least 8 people in the group, so we were too intimidated to say anything).

It was super hot in the room overnight, so we didn’t sleep well, though it was freezing when we set off the next morning. We trudged our way back up the 150m to the trail junction, which Kristine was really not feeling, but the hike across the alpine to Lagazuoi was more enjoyable than expected. We were able to keep to the shade for a while, which was nice, because once the sun hits you, it’s really hot.

It was Day 4 for us and we’d yet to experience any bad weather, so we considered ourselves extremely lucky. In the summer, it’s very common for it to be hot in the morning, but then have a rainstorm roll in in the afternoon. We didn’t experience that at all. In fact, it was nice for 6 days straight, so I would say that from my experience, late September isn’t the worst time to visit.

It’s a little under 3km from the Scotoni junction to the Lagazuoi junction. Rifugio Lagazuoi is located off the main trail as well, so you don’t actually have to hike up there if you’re not staying at the hut. It’s another ~150m of gain over a little more than 1km, so you are adding a fair bit of elevation gain to hike to the top. I was determined to do it, with or without Kristine. Honestly, I thought she was going to skip it because she doesn’t like hiking uphill in the heat (who does?), but she was having a good morning, so she decided to hike up there with me. It helped that the sun was behind the mountain, so the hike up was mostly in the shade.

I’m really glad we did because there is so much history along the side of the mountain in this area. There’s all kinds of defensive infrastructure from the war, including a very extensive tunnel network. The tunnels are easy to visit on the way up to Lagazuoi, so we took our time and dipped in and out of the tunnels, which run along the ridge. So you can hike in from one side of the mountain, and then look out through windows down onto the other side of the mountain. It’s very cool!

You can take a gondola from the base all the way up to the top of Lagazoui, so there were a lot of people around when we reached the top at lunchtime. We stopped for a sweet treat and a drink and I finally tried kaiserschmarrn, which is a big German pancake. It looks a bit like a funnel cake, and it’s basically just scrambled pancakes covered in applesauce and icing sugar. It’s pretty tasty, but honestly, it could have used a bit of maple syrup (lol, I know). It was a cloudless day and the views from the top of the peak are absolutely stunning, so we enjoyed the experience, but were a bit apprehensive about our remaining mileage for the day.

We still only had 12km of hiking on day 4, but unlike the two previous days, we also had over 1000m of elevation gain. When we left Lagazuoi, we had to immediately hike down 600m to the highway, just to hike back up 350m on the other side of the road. I can’t lie, the hike downhill was rough. One of the biggest differences I noticed between Italian and Canadian trails was ease of terrain. Canadian trails usually try and take the path of least resistance to the top. If that involves switchbacking back and forth across the mountain, no problem. In Italy, switchbacks only seem to be used when absolutely necessary, like when coming down Forcella dl Lech, which is too steep for anything but switchbacks. The hike down Lagazuoi was brutal, mostly because the trail went straight down the mountain. It’s all lose rock and it’s hard to maintain your speed on the way down. It’s exhausting on the knees and our legs were like jelly by the time we finally made it to the bottom. It didn’t take too long because of the direct route, but no part of it was fun.

This area is called Passo Falzarego and we made a beeline to the local tourist shop and cafe for a bathroom break and another sweet treat. Kristine didn’t eat at the top of Lagazuoi, so she had her dessert, while I had a popsicle to cool down. It was pretty much just us and a bunch of biker dudes on the side of the highway, so we had a good laugh at ourselves while perched on the curb with burly men walking all around us.

We had ~4km of hiking left for the afternoon and we ended up splitting up for part of it. Kristine wanted to go direct to our hut at Rifugio Averau, but I was keen to fit in another swim, which involved a small detour. It was very hot, so Kristine continued on the main road, while I diverted to Lago di Limedes. From afar, this lake looks really cute, but it was probably one of the worst swims I had on the trail. At this point, I was trying to maintain a trend of swimming every day, so I wasn’t picky. Even up close, the lake looks nice, but it’s tiny and once you start to wade into it, you notice that it’s completely filled with slimy green algae that just floats around in the shallows. It was the warmest water of the trip, but I could easily understand why I was the only one swimming.

Kristine had a bit of a diabetic crash out while we were apart, so I ended up catching up to her again where she took a break to eat some sugar. Before you get to Averau, you have to hike to the top of Forcella Averau, which has more technical section that involves climbing up a chimney before you reach the top. Kristine was cursing at the chimney, but we both had to admit that the views were pretty stellar once we reached the top! You cross over the back of Mount Averau and then arrive at the Rifugio, which is nestled in the pass at the base of Mount Nuvolao.

Rifugio Nuvolao is the other iconic hut on the Alta Via 1. It’s the oldest hut on the trail and it’s serviced only by a cable car, so it’s pretty small. We didn’t score reservations at Nuvolao either because Mac’s Adventure Travels really let us down on the bookings, but I didn’t mind like I did with Scotoni, because the views from Averau were breathtaking! Overall, day 4 was my second favourite day on the trail (after day 3), but Rifugio Averau was my favourite hut of the trip.

This was the first day that we weren’t the first people to arrive to our dorm room – instead we were the last to arrive in our room of 6. It was one of the smallest rooms we stayed in, but our dormmates were all very nice and we be-friended two hikers from Singapore. We also had a balcony with an amazing view, which we marred by hanging all our sweaty clothes from it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting out on the patio with a couple of beers, enjoying the view. As the sun went down, we got the most stunning sunset, which we enjoyed over supper. In my opinion, Averau had the best food on the trail and I couldn’t resist breaking my one-drink rule with a second glass of wine.

We sat next to a large group of older men, who were giggling over a photo of a phallic shaped rock that some other hikers had sent them. We saw it from across the table and started giggling too, much to their chagrin because they thought they’d offended our “young” sensibilities. We all ended up having a good laugh over it and learned that a bunch of them had recently travelled to Newfoundland, so we swapped a few stories.

We took in the stars while burning off a bit of energy after dinner to conclude what was really a perfect day on the trail. At this point, I felt like I was hitting my stride on the trail and I was honestly loving every second of it. It was unlike any trail I’ve ever hiked and the luxury of being able to hike with a light pack, eat a full meal every night, have a shower, and sleep in a real bed, were all such treats. More of the second half of the trail coming next week!

Hiking the Alta Via 1: Lago Braies to Fanes

January 3, 2026January 2, 2026 / Maria / 1 Comment

The Alta Via 1 is a premier hut to hut hiking trail located in the Dolomite mountains in northern Italy. Europe is well known for its hut to hut hiking. Unlike Canada, the mountains in Europe are very developed, with lots of infrastructure and roads scattered throughout, making hiking trails extremely accessible. One of the most popular hut to hut hiking routes is the Tour du Mont Blanc, which hikes through the Alps in France, Switzerland, and Italy. The Alta Via 1 is located further east in Italy, and is one of a series of “Alta Via’s” or “high routes” that traverse the region from North to South. The most popular route is the Alta Via 1, which if hiked in full, extends 120km from Lago di Braies to the town of Belluno.

If I’m being honest, I’d never heard of the Alta Via 1 until my friend Kristine approached me about hiking it with her. I was keen on the opportunity to go hiking in Europe, so I said yes, even though me and Kristine didn’t know each other very well. We had only met once in real life when we decided to go to Italy together, but fortunately, I didn’t end up with any regrets about the trip!

I flew into Venice in mid-September and we met in Cortina, spending 2 days together before starting the hike. Similar to Canada, bookings for popular hiking trails can be hard to get. Because the mountains are so developed, there are limited opportunities for camping along the Alta Via 1, meaning that most people stay in mountain rifugios. These are basically hostels, providing room and board for hikers, and they can book up far in advance. I’m familiar with my local booking platform, but it’s intimidating to try and tackle a whole new system (especially since the Alta Via 1 doesn’t have a consolidated platform and you have to book each hut separately), so we opted to use a third party.

I’m sure there are some good third party sites out there, but we went through a company called Mac’s Adventures, and they were really terrible. I wouldn’t recommended them for a ton of reasons that I don’t really want to get into, but at a high level, they sold us an itinerary that they couldn’t deliver and then tried to cancel our trip rather than attempt to fix it. We ended up resolving the logistical challenges ourselves to stop the trip from being cancelled, for which we received no discount. I’m pretty good at logistics, so if I had my time back, I would have just done the work myself, because Mac’s demonstrated no critical thinking or problem solving skills and I ended up doing the work anyways.

The rifugios usually release early in the year, around January, so you should be prepared to book pretty early. There are lots of options, but if you want to stay in one of the really popular huts (like Rifugio Lagazuoi), then you need to book right away. The entire hike is 120km, but lots of people (us included) just hike a portion of the trail. We ended up hiking 100km, approximately 80km of which was on the traditional Alta Via 1 trail. In hindsight, I wish I’d done the whole thing, but I still had a great time on the section of trail we chose.

Our base point for the trip was in Cortina, but the trail actually starts at Lago di Braies. We caught the 445 bus from Cortina to Dobbiaco in the early morning, followed by the 442 bus to Lago di Braies. Both are city buses that leave fairly frequently, but can get very busy. We were able to buy our ticket in advance for the 445, but since we started late in the season, we couldn’t buy it in advance for the 442. We managed to get on board, but it was very full and some people were denied entrance, so you should book this one in advance too, if possible.

As a Canadian, Lago di Braies reminded me a lot of Lake Louise. It’s a very popular lake, and there’s no hiking required to visit it. They run a very expensive boat rental if you want to canoe on the lake, which many people do, so it’s always very busy. I started my hike by grabbing a sandwich from one of the stalls for later and then we began our trek, walking around the eastern shore of the lake. It had poured while we were on the bus, but it stopped raining right when we arrived at the Lake, and we were surprised to see the sun come out so quickly. I was really keen to swim in as many lakes as possible, so I took a quick dip at the back of the lake. I did google whether this was allowed before I went, but I’ve heard since that you’re not supposed to swim in the lake, so I’m not sure if I was in the wrong. The water is quite cold, so it was a very short lived dip.

Once you get to the back of the lake, the trail starts a very long ascent up to the alpine. It feels as though you’re hiking straight uphill as you tackle ~1000m of elevation gain in just over 4.5km. Despite it being late September, it was quite warm and there was limited shade, so it was a bit of a struggle up to the top. The first part of the trail is more or less in a boulder field. There are a few benches along the way, but the trail feels like it just keeps getting steeper the further up you go. There is a small section with some ropes in the middle of the trail before you hit the alpine, but it’s not overly technical.

After the rope section, you reach the alpine and there’s another uphill slog to the top of Forcella sora Forno, which was the highest point of elevation for us on our first day. From there, you can continue to hike up to Croda del Becco, which is a popular viewpoint looking down on Lago di Braies, but it’s another 400m of uphill and it’s a more technical scramble, so we opted to skip it. The views from the Forcella (pass) are beautiful though. You can look down on the first rifugio of the trail, Rifugio Biella. It wasn’t our final destination, but Kristine had a pretty rough ascent up the trail, so we were enthusiastic about stopping for a break.

It was hot on the trail, but windy on the Forcella, so we quickly cooled down at Biella. We had our first sweet treat of the trek, a fruit encrusted cheesecake. We still had another 3.5km of hiking to get to our first rifugio, but it was easy walking in comparison to the climb up. The clouds moved back in and we had a gentle walk down a mountain road before crossing the barren alpine. It didn’t take us too long to arrive at Rifugio Sennes and Kristine was thrilled to see lots of cows hanging around the hotel (she’s a big livestock enthusiast). In total, we hiked 9.5km on day 1, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was paired with 950m of elevation gain, so it still felt like a big day.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Rifugio Sennes would be once of the fanciest huts on our trip! We lucked out with our assigned room, which slept 4, but never ended up filling up. So we had the room to ourselves and were able to get a hot shower before dinner. Supper and breakfast were included at all our rifugios and I had a very yummy meat stew for dinner, along with a glass of wine. I mentioned in my post about hiking Tre Cime that the Italian Dolomites are more German influenced than Italian, which was especially reflected in the food, but there was plenty of good Italian wine to go around!

We had very nice neighbours at Sennes and we quickly be-friended a guy from the UK who was starting what sounded like a pretty amazing gap year, as well as a newly married couple from Calgary! The British guy was hiking way faster than us, so we never saw him again after Sennes, but we caught up with our Calgarian friends again the next day for lunch. We also had the luxury of wifi at the huts, so we were able to check in with our families every evening.

On day 2, we’d be hiking a similar distance to day 1, 10.5km, but with half the elevation gain, so it felt much easier. It was cloudy and cool when we set off from the rifugio in the morning, but we enjoyed that the trail was much less busy than the previous day. We started by hiking through the forest to nearby Rifugio Fedaro Vedla, which is a great alternative option to Sennes. Since it was still early in the day, we didn’t stop for a break and instead continued hiking on to the next hut, Rifugio Pederu.

The trail continues down over the mountain towards Pederu, which is accessible by car. The Alta Via 1 is an interesting experience because almost all of the huts are accessible by vehicle in some way or another (that’s how they transport supplies), it’s just that many of the roads are 4×4 or closed to the public. Pederu itself is accessible by bus and you can even pay to have your backpack shuttled between Sennes and Pederu.

The hike down to Pederu runs along the gravel mountain road that connects Pederu to Fodara Vedla. It’s an easy trek if you’re hiking down, but I didn’t envy those who had to hike up it. We lost 300m of elevation in less than 2km, so it was quite steep! We had to redo that elevation loss after lunch, but fortunately it was a more gentle climb. We arrived at Pederu before the lunch service had started, so we had some snacks with our new friends. Kristine had her daily cappuccino and I had my homemade iced tea (since I don’t drink coffee). It became a bit of a ritual for us: coffee and iced tea in the morning, and then every evening Kristine would have a coke zero and I would have a glass of wine. Plus we both indulged in a sweet treat whenever available!

We started the afternoon with another climb, but we fared much better than the previous day. The nice thing about doing this hike in late September was that I’d already done over 400km of hiking earlier in the year, so I was feeling very strong. We also have the benefit of living in the mountains year-round, so we’re used to the elevation gain. Even so, we couldn’t keep up with the Europeans, who seem to be on another level of fitness entirely, running up and down hills like it’s nothing!

Some of the tourists from less mountainous parts of the world were definitely struggling. Hut to hut hiking may sound cushy (which it is compared to the wilderness style of backpacking I do in Canada), but the Alta Via 1 covers some serious elevation over the course of your trek. We rarely hiked along flat terrain and would sometimes do 2 or 3 passes in a single day. We passed a group from Ontario in the afternoon who were finding the constant uphill very challenging. My advice would be to still pack light on these hut to hut hikes. The weight of extra clothes and snacks can really add up, so keep your packing list simple.

I really enjoyed the afternoon on Day 2. The sun came out and once we got over the initial climb, we meandered through the alpine with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. We passed by a small cafe and stopped to admire the cows, before arriving at our destination, Rifugio Fanes, in the mid-afternoon. We didn’t get so lucky with our room assignment at Fanes, as we ended up in an 11-person dorm room, but we were the first people there, so we got first pick of the beds. Despite sharing the room with so many people, it was surprisingly quiet and I ended up enjoying the experience more than some of the smaller rooms we stayed in at other rifugios.

This was probably because it was still a very nice rifugio. It served one of the best meals we had on the trip (eclipsed only by Rifugio Averau) and Kristine was very enthused about the resident cat, Minka, that she was able to befriend. Kristine is a cat person and I am a dog person. I feel like this is reflected a little bit in our personalities, but we made it work!

Before dinner, we decided to visit neighbouring Rifugio Lavarella. Fanes and Lavarella are located less than 1km apart, near a small alpine lake. The sun came out in full, so I went for a quick dip in the lake, which was extremely cold, but refreshing, before we stopped by Lavarella for a beer. This is an important pit stop on the trail (whether you’re staying in one of the huts or not) because Lavarella is actually home to the highest altitude micro-brewery in Europe! We each enjoyed a beer before heading back to Fanes.

We made more new friends at Fanes, primarily Americans this time. There was a friendly female professor who was visiting for a conference, as well as several trail runners, who made us feel particularly slow by doubling our mileage every day. Overall, we had a really nice stay at Fanes and enjoyed using their patio telescope to spy on some alpine ibex on the nearby mountain meadows. Tune in next week for more on the trail!

The Road Goes Ever On

Canadian Outdoor Adventure and Travel Blog

Alta Via 1

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