One of the highlights in my Dolomite trekking was Tre Cime di Lavaredo in the Tre Cime National park (Three Peaks Nature Park) in the Sesto Dolomites of South Tyrol, surrounded by Dobbiaco, San Candido and Sesto. So, I decided to base on Dobbiaco or Toblach in German, a small country town located 10 km south to the border with Austria.
While planning in Japan, I wondered which route by bus or train would be a more time-saving and pleasant journey from Venezia to Dobbiaco. After checking the various information on Internet, I choose the bus route. In Japan, trains are much secured transportation than buses in general, but it is a different story in Italy, especially in the case that one needs to get on European cross-border trains. I was right with this choice, because in return I had a terrible experience with the Italian train services.
On July 1st, I got on the ATVO shuttle bus at Piazzale Roma which departed at 7:50 directly going for Cortina d’Ampezzo. It arrived there at 10:35 am just in time, but the weather suddenly deteriorated with a fierce sleet. So I decided to wait for the next bus at the café shop within the bus station building together with a young solo climber from Japan who happened to take the same bus from Venezia. He was, unlike me, a professional climber belonging to the Japanese Alpine Club and going to stay at the mountain lodge in Tre Cime on that day. We enjoyed chatting over local wines, in which he had special interest.
The local bus arrived at Dobbiaco at around 14:00, a little bit behind schedule. Casa Alpina Dobbiaco, my basement here for 5 days stood just in front of the last bus stop. At dinner I was entertained much with local dishes and wine.
Lago di Braies
On the next day, I was joined by my old friend who had happened to be in Germany on business trip. After I welcomed him at the Dobbiaco train station and brought him to the hotel, we together headed for the lake Braies by bus. It took us less than 30 minutes to reach there. The lake is situated at the height of 1493m above sea level, surrounded on three sides by rocky walls made of grey dolomites of peaks including the Croda del Becco (2,810m).
We enjoyed a stroll for about 2 hours around this blue mysterious mountain lake with a length of 1.2 km and a width of 300-400 meters. We wrapped up the day with beers at the hotel’s garden facing the lake. Later I found this hotel was well known for the Nazi holding 141 high-ranking politicians and officials here as a hostage during the world war 2.
Tre Cime di Lavaredo
That's why I chose the hiking around the Tre Cime as the top priority of my travel to Italy for celebrating the 70th birthday with my friend of high school days.
On July 3rd, we departed by bus from Dobbiaco Stazione FS just in front of Casa Alpina at 8:20 am for Tre Cime-Rifugio Auronzo, the entrance of the hike. Then 30 minutes after, we started to walk up the slope toward the Rifugio Auronzo, overwhelmed by the vertical cliff ahead of us.
My hiking plan was to walk around the three pinnacles counterclockwise from and to the Rifugio Auronzo. The entire loop is 10 km, which seemed to be appropriate hiking for two 70 years old men if the whether was good at high altitude of between 2,400 and 2,900 m.
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| Map credit: Cicerone |
<Rifugio Auronzo (2330 m)>
From the last bus stop, less than 20 minutes' easy ascent led us to the Rifugio Auronzo, which provides alpinists with accommodation, restaurant, and toilet. This is the starting point to the Tre Cime hike. From its backyard, we had a great view of the Sesto Dolomites mountain rages.
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| Rifugio Auronzo |
< Rifugio Laveredo (2344 m)>
Now we headed for the next landmark of Rifugio Laveredo. On the way, we saw the Italian boarder soldiers preparing themselves for a military training, which reminded me of the old Italian folk song, "山の大尉 (Il testamento del capitano)" that we used to sing in the camp together with my mountain hiking club friends when I was a university student. The lyrics in the original language goes on like the following;
♪♪ El capitan de la compagnia
l'è ferito stà per morir
el manda a dire ai suoi Alpini
perchè lo vengano a ritrovar ♪♪
The lyrics sings the heroic captain of mountain soldiers who is about to die from injuries in the battles and has devoted his life to his majesties, regiment, mother, lover, and beautiful mountains covered with alpine flowers;
<Cima Grande (2,999m)>
From Rifugio Laveredo, we ascent further steps to the three peaks, each of which from east to west, is called as Cima Piccola, Cima Grande, and Cima Ovest with the highest Cima Grande of 2999m above the sea level standing in the middle of the other two.
Until the end of the First World War, the peaks were lying on the border between Italy and Austria and still presents the linguistic boundary between German and Italian. That led me to confusion about the mountain names between “Tre Cime di Lavaredo” and “Drei Zinnen” as I had no knowledge of the both languages.
<Rifugio Locatelli (2405 m)>
On the way to the Rifugio Locatelli from the three peaks, the weather suddenly began deteriorating with the dark clouds overshadowing the whole mountain area.
At the entrance of Rifugio Locatelli, we waited for a while wondering if the rain would stop. The lodge was full of hikers taking shelter from cold sleet and wind, so we could not get in. At last we decided to wear a rain pant and jacket for hiking and continue to go further without a lunch meal to complete the entire loop trekking around the three peaks.
On the way the path became slippy with the sleet rain hitting us severely, making us sometimes to wait for a while behind a rock. There were crashes of thunder in the distance, which scared the hell out of us.
<Malga Langalm (2283 m)>
It was over 2 pm when we arrived to the last lodge, Malga Langalm of the loop trekking. We were wet and hungry. There were not so many hikers inside and we felt a warm and family-like atmosphere enjoying a cup of coffee & sandwich of local taste.
After the rest, it was a final stretch of path down to the bus stop where we started. We made a loop around Tre Cime!
Mt. Elmo
On the next day, July 4th, we got on the early train at Dobbiaco station to head for Mt. Elmo (2434m) . On the sigh board of the station platform I found the next station was Lienz of Austria, which reminded me of my traveling 5 years ago in Austria and looking toward the Dolomites of Italy from a hill top close to that town. I realized that at last I've been here.
We changed the train to a local bus for Versciaco, where we used the cable car to the top of the funicular railway, starting point of hiking to Mt. Elmo.
It was an easy and pleasant hiking, especially nice for families with kids. Before the final sharp slope to the peak, we saw a middle-aged couple and their son walking up together with two dogs, one slim but energetic hunting dog and the other one is a big but gentle looking mountain dog. I asked the father to take a photo of us with this lovely big guy against the background of the magnificent Dolomites mountain range. Instead of father, his boy took it for us all.
When we returned here from the peak, we were surprised to see this big guy lying peacefully besides his mistress, waiting for his father and son returning. He had done his best to be here so far. After this commemorative shot taken together, he refused to continue to walk up further and decided to wait for his family coming back again here.
Climbing the last slope, we had a magnificent view over the ‘val Pusteria (Pusteria valley)’ and mountains of the Sesto Dolomites.
Lago di Dobbiaco
After descending from Mt. Elmo, we went to the rental car shop called Auto Kirchler in San Candido for the next day's driving to the western part of Dolomites.
On the way back to our lodge in Dobbiacco by car, we dropped by the Lake Lago di Dobbiaco which is situated at 1259 m in the Pusteria valley, about 2 km away from our lodge.
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