Three Peaks of Lavaredo (Tre Cime di Lavaredo). I can’t believe we haven’t been here yet! Draft plan was to visit some of the Dolomites in June and the dice fell on the Sexten’s. We didn’t prepare our goals ahead – all we knew was that we wanted to hike a circle around Tre Cime, and the rest will be decided on the go.
The road trip itself is always fun for us and we usually like to spice it up with old roads, mountain passes, unexpected landscapes and beautiful views. About 6-hour drive to our destination is not a drama, so we decided to continue a bit on some local roads and passes that we noticed on the map – we hoped for beautiful views. This time we focused on the lakes (quite by accident 😊), which this area has in abundance. I will try to list them: Lago di Santa Caterina, Lago di Misurina, Lago di Landro and Lago di Dobbiaco were on our way, and 2 days later we decided to visit the inevitable Lago di Braies. Along the way, we passed through Cortina d’Ampezzo and saw some beautiful mountains which we will definitely climb in the future. In such a sightseeing fashion we continued our road trip all the way to our destination, in Moos near Sexten.
Although accommodation here is a bit more expensive (compared to what we are used to in Slovenia 😊), when you have a view from the balcony of the peaks over 3,000 meters high as if they were in the palm of your hand, you know where you have spent your money. Skiing is common in this area so I won’t waste words on it, except that it really pays off to come in the summer – you can experience the nature in a better way than in that skiing mess with thousands of people.
The first day was ahead of us and we viewed the forecast as if our lives depended on it. The weather is a really strange thing in the Dolomites – you go out in the sunny morning, birds chirping, everything is beautiful and then, after an hour or two, it rains so much that the morning decision to take raincoats now seems like the best move ever – even though we looked at each other sourly (like, what are we carrying all this stuff for) and almost left them in the room!
This day was no exception either – we packed our raincoats and the day started on a sunny morning with no clouds in the sky – we gave ourselves high five right away, it will be a great weather. And it was great, we climbed relatively quickly from Moos (parking lot is a few km from the center so you can go on foot) to Rifugio Locatelli mountain hut (2405 m) where we began to enjoy the beautiful views of the mountains, on Tre Cime primarily.
As we started a circular tour around Tre Cime, the crowds got bigger and the weather got uglier. As we reached the Rifugio Auronzo mountain hut (2330 m), which is also accessible by road, it became more crowded and considerably colder and cloudier. As this mountain hut can be reached by car, the vast majority of people here just drive up, take a few photos, eat/drink something at hut and return to the valley. We ate there for a short time and quickly continued further to avoid bad weather and heavy rain. We put on our raincoats after the icy rain started to fall and we continued back to the Locatelli hut (where there were hardly any people now). From there we went further down to the parking lot where the sun started to scorch us again.
We survived the first day of Dolomites’ weather, but the seed of doubt immediately creeped in – how are we going to overcome a more serious climb if such rain catches us in a much more delicate moment and in a much more exposed place than this hike today?
Next morning, we were going crazy with refreshing the forecast and again, the prediction was that it will be more or less ok (with possible rain showers from 11am to 3pm). We decided to visit the famous lake Lago di Braies – I’ve never heard of it but my better half said it was famous. We took a look at the map and once we were there we made a circle around the lake and then headed to the summit of Croda del Becco (2810 m), hoping that the rain will not surprise us again. The lake and the lake’s landscape really are beautiful, but the crowds of tourists waiting in line, wanting to be photographed in wooden boats are inexplicable to me. Not to mention how much you lose on that natural impression – it is no longer that wild and untouched nature and you’re not alone with your thoughts. Every now and then you get an elbow in the ribs, someone’s breath behind your neck (because you’re in the position where that person wants to be photographed) or a request to take a photo. The secret, of course, is in Instagram – the Instagram bible next to me tells me that it is a very popular place to take a photo 😄. We were already anxious from so much people around us so we took a few photos in a hurry (but not in wooden boats, of course 😊) and ran away from the crowds.
We set off on an ascent that was nothing spectacular but we were happy with the silence and solitude and the view of the lake and the surrounding area. It seemed we’ll have a nice day ahead of us. Or maybe we won’t – even though we were very fast, we were not faster than the rain. Just as we reached a slightly harder climbing part on a rocky ridge, at the crossroads for Rifugio Biella mountain hut (2327 m), it started to rain and a relatively simple climb turned into a skating rink! We tried a little harder, unprepared to give up, but the rain intensified and we reluctantly decided to turn around, maybe 300m below the mountain top.
Upon our return, we commented that the weather would surely improve again in a couple of hours. And of course, it improved after two thirds of the descent so we folded the raincoats again and continued – wet in the body and the soul 😄 – to eat sandwiches at the lake.
As we walked around the lake’s shore and looked at the unreachable peak, the fish bit our toe fingers and the circles on the lake’s surface indicated that more rain was still waiting for us, so we slowly walked towards the car.
On the way to our apartment we stopped in Toblach (Dobbiaco) and decided to make a circular walk around the beautiful Lago di Dobbiaco lake, when we were already there. The rain continued through the afternoon and evening so, apart from this lake, we spent the afternoon touring outdoor equipment stores and going through the eternal hesitance of to buy another backpack or not (luckily, we didn’t buy it and thusly expanded our collection of the existing dozen or so backpacks 😄).
The rain woked us up on the third morning and this time seemed it would be raining all day long. We decided to visit Lienz in Austria, which was relatively close. Also, we drove to the starting point for Mt. Grossglockner, from Kals am Grossglockner (1324 m) to Lucknerhaus mountain hut (1948 m), to see the starting point since we were planning to go there soon – I was hoping we’ll go that summer, but we didn’t make it due to a combination of circumstances.
Before the heavy rain we managed to see a part of a very beautiful panorama of the Lienz Dolomites and the lake Tristacher See (where we saw giant trouts just throwing themselves at the flies buzzing above the surface).
All in all, our adventure was over – weather wasn’t really good to us, but we enjoyed it still. We got back in the same rhythm, by detours. We rode over the legendary mountain from the Giro d’Italia, Monte Zoncolan (1750 m), which we immediately put to our cycling bucket list because it’s simply made for it…
