Dolomites

Getting there and away

• Rome2Rio is a fantastic site for searching for transportation. It shows lots of different options, prices, schedules, etc. HOWEVER - one thing I learned is that some of the buses (and maybe trains?) are seasonal. For example, Rome2Rio shows a daily bus that leaves from Venice to Listolade (a teeny town in the Dolomites), but it turns out it only runs from July-August! I found this out only by emailing the bus company. Luckily there are other options, but this was a pretty big surprise when I discovered it initially. Additionally, if two legs of a trip are on the same TYPE of conveyance (i.e., both buses), then Rome2Rio shows them both as the same colour, making it hard to notice that there’s a transfer. This kinda bit us in the booty when we were coming back from the Dolomites, because our bus that we THOUGHT would take us in to Venice proper actually dumped us at the airport, where we needed to transfer to another bus to get to the island.
• In general it was quite difficult to figure out which parts of the “AV1” were accessible by car, and which weren’t. We didn’t want to follow the traditional/recommended route, so I needed to figure out how to get us into / out of the mountains. This took a LOT of time and effort, so if you don’t want to spend weeks figuring this out, I highly recommend just booking with a group.
• I also wanted “bail out options” everywhere along the route, which was also super tricky to find.
• It was very difficult to figure out the actual distances between rifugios. The most popular hiking book () really sucks for this: instead of a map with distances on it, it shows TIMES between a random subset of rifugios. WHY?? Instead, I recommend the app OutdoorActive - this will let you put in two locations, and it’ll automatically calculate the distance (including altitude change) between two points. While it wasn’t perfect (more on that later) this was by far the most helpful planning app I found.

Route

We did an atypical route: we went South to North. When I was researching the trip, it seemed like the altitude gain was the same no matter which direction you went.

Day 0: Venice –> Rif. Vazzoler

We took a train from Venice to Belluno (9 Euros each, 2 hrs), then caught a taxi from Belluno to Rifugio Capanna Trieste (120 Euros, 45 minutes). Then we walked from Rif. Trieste to Rif. Vazzoler (4km, very steep). It rained almost the whole walk. We arrived at Rif. Vazzoler at about 8pm. The food was excellent: life-changingly delicious barley soup.

Day 1: Rif. Vazzoler –> Rif. Coldai

We started hiking at around TK AM - we were the last ones out of the Rifugio. This was the most intense hiking we did the whole trip. I’m still recovering from several years of deconditioning due to my chronic illness, but WOW was this tough. I didn’t take many pictures on this leg because honestly I was absolutely wiped out.

That last picture was maybe halfway up the longest uphill part of the climb. I really truly wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. The hiking app kept telling us we only had 45 minutes left - it took us 2 hours from this point to make it to the rifugio. We passed a lake but I was afraid to stop and appreciate it - I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep walking.

Coldai is stunningly beautiful - one of the most gorgeous mountain huts I’ve ever seen.

Day 2: Rif. Coldai –> Rif. Staulanza –> Passo Giau

The plan for this day was to walk from Coldai to Passo Giau, which is ~13 miles. But after how intensely I was wiped out with the ~7 mile hike the day before, I decided it wasn’t a good idea. Instead, we planned to walk from Coldai to Staulanza (4 miles), and then catch a taxi from Staulanza to Passo Giau. This was a very very very good idea.

Leaving Coldai is basically down the entire time. We passed quite a few folks going up, and it seems like it can be done as a day-hike if you are really really fit and get an early start.

It’s really hard to describe how unbelievably beautiful and idyllic the area is. Every step was jaw-dropping views. Probably the one exception to that is Rifugio Staulanza. It’s by a busy highway in a valley, so it’s noisy and doesn’t really have the same feeling of isolation or wildness. Walking to it you have to go immediately next to a high way - there’s no real path. You’re inches from cars. Really not enjoyable.

We had lunch here, then called our taxi friend to come drive us to Passo Giau. The drive was expensive, but absolutely worth it. Passo Giau was also one of my favorite rifugios - it’s easily accessible (you can drive to it!) and the food was phenomenal. This was the view from our room:

Also hard to fully capture how it feels. The landscape is otherwordly.

Day 3: Passo Giau –> Rif. Averau

Absolutely spectacular rock formations. What’s not pictured here is the sweeping glowing green valleys butting up against even more epic mountains extending as far as the eye can see in absolutely every direction. Unbelievable views for anyone who loves mountains.

This day we were supposed to walk ~4.2 miles to Lagazuoi, the rifugio I’d been most excited about. But instead on the way to Averau for lunch two things happened: 1) our map via OutdoorActive had incorrect directions and differed greatly from the physical map, so we needed to confirm the route with a knowledgeable expert, and 2) my allergic reaction situation got significantly worse, requiring a first aid kit. So when we stopped at Averau for lunch and they had two available beds for the night, we immediately booked them.

After using the first aid kit (no pics because it’s disgusting) and having an excellent lunch, we hiked around the area. I especially loved going up to Rifugio Nuvolau, absurdly perched on a rocky expanse overlooking Passo Giau.

I still can’t believe how lucky we got that Rif. Averau had beds available: usually you need to book your rooms months in advance.

Day 4: Rif. Averau –> Rif. Averau

Since we were sleeping at the same rifugio, we could explore the area a bit more. After the delicious buffet breakfast (best in Italy so far), we walked down to Rif. Scoiattoli and went around the Cinque Torri. It’s apparently a great climbing area.

We stopped at Rif. Cinque Torri and then went back up to Rif. Scoiattoli for lunch (also excellent). During lunch the wind picked up and we could see it was about to start raining, so we ran back up the hill to Rif. Averau and relaxed in our room until dinnertime (fantastic). Super glad we went to Nuvolau the day before, since it was way too rainy this day!

Day 5: Rif. Averau –> Naples

This was our last day in the Dolomites and it was the rainiest.

We hiked down from Averau to Scoiattoli, caught the gondola down to the road, caught a bus to TK town, then another bus to Venice airport, then another bus to Venice, then a train down to Naples.

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