Tre Cime di Lavaredo is deservedly the symbol of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site. We spent a day exploring the park, admiring the seemingly endless jagged peaks, and of course hiking the famous loop trail around the namesake massif.
The last leg of our 2 week trip through the Alps was 5 nights in Cortina D’Ampezzo nestled in the Italian Dolomites. We reserved one day to explore Tre Cime di Lavaredo, an alpine region with some stunning mountains.
The parking area at Rifugio Auronzo fills up quickly because it’s such a popular area for day hikers, but we got there early enough to secure a spot. It costs 30 Euro to drive your car in, or you can take a shuttle bus. After first taking a short hike to check out Cadini di Misurina, we headed off on the iconic Tre Cime de Lavaredo Loop.
We took the trail to the east, which was wide enough for a car to drive down most likely to service the hut a mile down the trail. Once past the hut, the trail narrowed to a footpath and headed up and over a ridge.
This section from the hut to the top of the ridge was the steepest part of the trail gaining 500 ft in half a mile.
But once we got to the the top, views of an alpine bowl framed by Tre Cime opened up in front of us.
We pulled up a rock beneath the giant sheer faced Tre Cime and ate some lunch. We noticed a few rock climbers hiking up and around the peaks and even a few on the face of the rock.
From this point we elected to take the short cut across the rocky landscape instead of heading further up into the mountains. The trail went through a giant meadow filled with dolomiti boulders. It reminded me of the stark alpine environments in the Sierra – no trees here, just layers and layers of jagged peaks as far as you can see.
At about 3 miles, the trail went by a series of small tarns that were quite picturesque when framed by Tre Cime. The view back up the valley into the heart of Tre Cime Nature Park was equally stunning.
The last section of the hike went over Forcella Col di Mezzo and wrapped around the southern side of Tre Cime. This section was interesting because the immediate terrain was a fairly flat meadow, but just a little bit further and there were steep drop offs on all sides down to the various valleys below.
The last view of the trail showed off all the local geography. The Cadini di Misurina range are the pointy mountains on the left. Front and center are Lago d’Antorno and Lago di Misurina framed by Punta Sorapis (the famous mountain near Lago di Sorapis). To the right is the Monte Cristallo range with just a dusting of snow.
The Tre Cime Nature Park is one of the highlights of the Dolomites. It has some of the more remote alpine trails in the region. Tre Cime is clearly the highlight, but if we had more days in the Dolomites we would have returned to explore some of the less-traveled trails!
