Alta Via 1: The Complete Hut-to-Hut Trek

Welcome to Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Queen of the Dolomites and your gateway to the Alta Via 1. Surrounded by the peaks of the Tofane, Cristallo, and Sorapiss, this celebrated mountain town has been drawing alpinists for well over a century – and tonight, you join them. Arrive at your leisure, drop your bags, and soak it in: wander the pedestrian Corso Italia, gaze up at the walls you’ll soon be walking beneath, and toast the start of your adventure over a relaxed dinner.

Get a good night’s sleep – tomorrow, the trail begins.

Accommodation: Hotel in Cortina d’Ampezzo
Meals: Dinner at your leisure – Cortina offers an excellent range of restaurants, and guests love experiencing the town’s dining scene.
(If you prefer, we can arrange to include dinner at your basecamp hotel.)

The trailhead is one of the most photographed spots in Italy, and for good reason. Lago di Braies is the largest natural lake in the Dolomites, 1.2km long and 36m deep, formed when an ancient landslide dammed the valley. On a sunny morning, the water glows emerald green. Enjoy it, then get hiking!

The trail rises nearly 1,000m beneath the sheer north wall of Croda del Becco to Forcella Sora Forno at 2,388m, with a few cabled switchbacks near the top where the path cuts through steep scree. The effort buys you instant solitude; the selfie crowds don’t follow. Strong hikers can add an optional 2-hour round trip to the Croda del Becco summit (2,810m) and look straight down at the lake you started from.

You’ll finish across the rolling karst pastures of the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park, cowbells included, as you reach your Rifugio for the night.

Hiking: 9.5 km (5.9 miles) | ↑961m ↓300m | 4.5 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain Hut in the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

A shorter day, and a good one for letting your legs recover while the scenery does the work. You’ll drop steeply to Rifugio Pederu (1,548m), a WWI supply camp turned Rifugio…with great food!

Next climb gradually through the Valun de Fanes between pale limestone walls. This is textbook karst country: over millennia, water has dissolved the rock into sinkholes, fissures, underground streams, and caves, one of which held the bones of cave bears that lived here over 50,000 years ago. It’s also the heart of Ladin culture, the Dolomites’ oldest language community, and the legendary Kingdom of Fanes from local folklore.

The plateau above 2,000m is prime marmot habitat; you’ll hear the alarm whistles before you see them. Tonight’s Rifugio sits beside a cluster of small lakes. Lago Le Vert is five minutes from the door and worth visiting before dinner. So is the bar at Rifugio Lavarella, home to the highest brewery in the Alps, which tastes exactly as good as it sounds after 10km.

Hiking: 10.2 km (6.4 miles) | ↑541m ↓637m | 3.5 – 4 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain hut on the Fanes plateau
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

There’s no warm-up this morning: the climbing starts within minutes of leaving the rifugio, a solid uphill to the small lake of Lago di Limo. From there, the trail runs across Le Grand Plan plateau before the day’s crux: Forcella di Lago. The descent off this pass is steep, loose, and needs sure feet, dropping to a small green lake framed by the walls of Cima Scotoni and Cima del Lago.

From the lake, it’s a long, steady climb through open rock terrain scattered with WWI ruins to Forcella Lagazuoi. The Italian and Austro-Hungarian front lines ran straight through this massif, and over 1km of military tunnels survive; some sections near the hut can be explored, though the full Galleria Lagazuoi needs a headtorch (a helmet is advised but not mandatory).

Rifugio Lagazuoi itself is one of the highest huts in the Dolomites, with a terrace panorama taking in the Tofane, Cinque Torri, Marmolada, Sella, and Pale di San Martino. The views from up here are just one of the reasons people book this trek.

Hiking: 12.8 km (8 miles) | ↑1130m ↓422m | 5.5 – 6 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain Hut
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

You’ll walk through a history lesson this morning, and you get to choose how. Option one is the open trail, passing trenches, gun positions, and tunnel entrances from the WWI mountain front. Option two is the Galleria Lagazuoi itself: a tunnel system dug by Italian troops in 1917, corkscrewing more than 1km down through the inside of the mountain, with windows blasted through the rock face along the way (a torch is needed, a helmet is recommended, and not one for the claustrophobic). Either way, the almost 1,000m wall of Tofana di Rozes fills the view north before you reach Passo Falzarego.

Then it’s a steady climb to the Cinque Torri, five freestanding limestone towers created when a single massif slowly broke apart. The tallest stands over 100m above the meadows; each tower has its own name, and the restored trench system around them is now the best open-air war museum in the Dolomites. You will often see climbers on some faces.

For those with time and depending on your next hut location, Rifugio Nuvolau (2,575m) is worth the 45min hike up, built in 1883 and the oldest hut in the Ampezzo Dolomites, perched on a ridgetop so exposed it looks Photoshopped. You can get both sunset and sunrise from the terrace, with Pelmo, Civetta, and the Marmolada glacier lined up on the horizon.

Hiking: 9.5 km (5.9 miles) | ↑698m ↓881m | 4.5 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain Hut
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

An early rise and up to Nuovolau to catch the sunrise may be an option for some this morning! Or a pleasant hike toward Passo Giau exposing the mighty picture-perfect Ra Gusela. South of Passo Giau, you will notice fewer hikers, and the trails turn big and open, crossing the grassy saddle country around Passo Giau, an alpine pasture with grazing cattle and long views to Sorapiss and the pyramid of Antelao, the second-highest peak in the Dolomites.

The trail then rounds Monte Formin and crosses the Mondeval plateau, where a 7,500-year-old burial of a Mesolithic hunter was discovered beneath a boulder in 1987; the Mondeval Man now sits in the museum in Selva di Cadore. Ahead, Monte Pelmo (3,168m) dominates everything. Locals call it the Caregon del Padreterno, the Almighty’s Throne, and there’s no hiking trail up it; it belongs to climbers only.

Hiking: 13.1 km (8.1 miles) | ↑426m ↓1074m | 4.5 – 5 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain hut below Monte Pelmo
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

The longest day of the itinerary, and the one people talk about afterwards. It starts gently, descending through woodland to Passo Staulanza; keep an eye out near Monte Pelmetto, where a fallen slab holds fossilized dinosaur tracks over 200 million years old.

Then comes the stiff 400m climb from Passo Staulanza to Forcella Coldai and Lago Coldai, a small tarn that appears in half the alpine calendars ever printed. Brave hikers swim; the water is honest about its altitude. What follows is the highlight of the entire Alta Via 1: a two-hour traverse beneath the northwest wall of Monte Civetta, the wall of walls, over 5km long and more than 1,000m high, with the trail running just a few hundred meters from the face.

The optional 30-minute detour up to Rifugio Tissi is worth every step for the head-on view and a great coffee!

You’ll finish at Rifugio Vazzoler, crimson shutters among the pines below Torre Venezia.

Hiking: 17.8 km (11.1 miles) | ↑836m ↓1038m | 6.5 – 7 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain hut in the Civetta group
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

A shorter stage, but it packs in some of the most varied terrain of the trek. You’ll drop through open meadows into the narrow Val Corpassa, directly beneath Torre Venezia (2,337m) and Torre Trieste (2,458m), rock towers rising a sheer 600m from the valley floor. Stop and look up; there are usually climbers strung across them.

The route then climbs steeply through dense forest over rock and tree roots to Col dell’Orso, Bear Pass, and on to Forcella del Camp (1,933m) on Civetta’s southern ridge, where the serrated crest of the Moiazza Sud suddenly fills the skyline. From here, the trail contours beneath vertical rock faces with long views south over the wilder ranges still to come.

Tonight’s hut sits above Passo Duran, and if you are lucky, the Moiazza walls will be glowing orange at dusk.

Hiking: 9.1 km (5.7 miles) | ↑582m ↓462m | 4 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain hut above Passo Duran
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

Most hikers never make it this far south, and today you’ll understand what they’re missing. Beyond Passo Duran, the route enters the San Sebastiano and Pramper groups: steeper slopes, wilder country, and trails you might have entirely to yourself. You’ll climb past the peak of Tamer Grande into a landscape of grassy ridges and wide-open combes, through high pastures around Rifugio Pramperet where edelweiss grows beside the path.

Start early, and you’ve a genuine chance of spotting chamois and roe deer. The day’s big test comes late: the crossing of the Cime de Zita over Forcella de Zita Sud (2,395m), the last high col of the trek, including a short knife-edge ridge section that needs care and a head for heights.

Hiking: 16.7 km (10.4 miles) | ↑1102m ↓1299m | 7 – 7.5 hrs
Accommodation: Mountain hut
Meals: Breakfast and dinner included

Your last day on the trail eases you back toward the valley, mostly downhill with one final climb to Forcella la Varetta (1,701m). The scenery changes character completely here: the Schiara group is the most barren terrain on the Alta Via 1, steep moraines and pale scree slopes where almost nobody strays from the path. The classic route wisely skips the via ferrata sections through the heart of the Schiara, so no climbing gear is needed. Then it’s a long, winding descent through beech and pine forest into the Val Cordevole, losing over 1,500m in total; your knees will remember it, so keep the trekking poles handy.

You’ll emerge at La Pissa, roughly 110km after leaving Lago di Braies, where the bus stop for Belluno marks the official end of the classic route. From here, take the bus to Belluno for your overnight accommodation, or return to Cortina by transfer.

Hiking: 12.2 km (7.6 miles) | ↑340m ↓1518m | 5 hrs
Meals: Breakfast at your mountain hut
Accommodation: Belluno (or return transfer to Cortina)

After breakfast, your Alta Via 1 adventure comes to an end. Depart at your leisure, taking with you 110km of memories, a camera full of Dolomite skylines, and legs that earned every one of them.

A presto – see you on the next trail!