Escape to the Dolomites

During the European heat wave we decided to escape to higher altitudes and spent a long weekend in the Dolomites, basing out of Wolkenstein in Gröden/Selva in Val Gardena, which is about 3 hours from Innsbruck by regional rail and bus.  Wokenstein/Selva is in South Tyrol (Süd Tirol in German) and was part of the Hapsburg Empire and "County of Tyrol" for more than 500 years.  After World War I, South Tyrol was annexed by Italy.  Under Mussolini, there were efforts to "Italianize" the region.  Cities were given Italian names and both German and Italian names are used today.  

Following WWI, South Tyrol has had a complicated relationship with Italy, but today is an autonomous region with considerable self-governing powers.  It is also one of the wealthiest regions of the EU with low poverty rates.  Many people in the region are multilingual, speaking German, Italian, English, and in some cases Ladin, which is still spoken by some families around the Dolomites.  

Wolkenstein/Selva is at 1500 meters, about 1000 meters higher than Innsbruck and while we were there we also observed cooling thunderstorms each afternoon.  It was a bit like hiking in Colorado.  Rise early, bag a summit, and retreat to the valleys by early afternoon. 

A morning summit of Sass da Ciampac with the atmosphere quickly destabilizing over the Sellagroupe.

In the winter, you can do a lift-served ski circuit around the Sellagroupe (pictured above), which is known as the Sellaronda. In the summer, enough lifts are run to enable a mountain bike Sellaronda, which is done most commonly with e-bikes using a day pass that costs 67 euro.  We weren't biking, but we bought the pass and spent a day doing what I called a "Quarter" Sellaronda involving about 15 km hiking and 10 lift rides, going from Wolkenstein to Sass Pordoi and back.  It's a nice way to cover a lot of ground and beats riding the busses.  

Hiking from the top of the Ciampinoi cable car to Passo Sella.  

The village of Canazei from the trail between the Pian Frataces cable car and Passo Pordoi

Piz Boè, the highest point in the Sellagroupe from near the top of the Sass Pordoi cable car

Our route also involved an excursion up the infamous 2-person Forcella cable car, also known as the "coffin lift."

The cable car is described on one web site as a two seater, but that's laughable since there's no sitting in that contraption.  You are just packed in there like a sardine with your partner.  

Getting on and off this thing involves commitment.  It is not a detachable and you have to jump in from the back.  Two lift ops start yelling encouragement to you as the lift approaches and you grab a handle as the lift goes by, spin, and jump in.  Your riding partner is a bit farther down the line and does the same thing a second later.  If you don't move fast enough, the lift ops shove you in.  Then they lock you in for the ride.  Videos were not allowed, but at great risk to personal safety, I was able to smuggle one out of Italy.

The Dolomites are very popular, but there are some areas that are really overwhelmed by the social-media crowd.  One day we decided to do a loop hike from the top of the Col Raiser cable car.  We began by ascending Seceda Alm (alm is pasture in German), whic was covered in flowers, green as Ireland, and offered some otherworldly views.  

Church in Seceda Alm

Sassolungo from Seceda Alm

But the real attraction here are the views of the Odle Group from the Mt. Seceda ridge line.  

It turns out this is probably the most popular trail in the Dolomites with many people taking the Mt. Seceda cable cars to just below the ridge.  A round trip on these is 76 euro, so we avoided them, but it should have clued us in that something was up.  When we got to the top, it was a mass of humanity, Due to overcrowding and littering, there is now a 5 euro charge to access one section of the ridge trail.  I couldn't help but think of the Yogi Berra quote, "nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded." We bypassed the queue and elected to hike elsewhere. 

Lesson learned!

Getting back to funner aspects of the weekend, when we arrived at our guest house there were a lot of ski trophies and photos including a bib from Salt Lake 2002.  It turned out the place was run by a real ski-racing family and the husband, Alan, competed for Italy in the slalom during the 2002 games (sadly a DNF). More recently, their son Max won two golds and one bronze at the 2023 Junior World Championships.  Hopefully they will be returning to Salt Lake in 2034.