Dolomites Day 4 & Alta Via 1
Thursday, 9 July 2026
I normally carry all the passports but today I had to issue them to everyone before we started as we were going on our separate ways with plans to meet later on at Lagazuoi but of course with a real chance we'd all end up in different countries.
Jon and Jett were going to continue to the end of the normal Alta Via Day 3, which would involve 1700m climb (Mt Wellington plus almost half again), I was going to join them for the first big climb out of the valley then take the longer but mostly downhill route back to Cortina (virtually mapless) - to get the car, while Zali (who decided to decline any further huge hill climbs) was going to take 3 busses (on the already mentioned terrible Dolomites bus services) and meet us over there. She had the highest risk of ending up in Austria. After a nice Refugio-provided breakfast us walkers left just after 8.30 and I think we had made it to Refugio Fannes, almost the top of the first big climb, by around 10:30 where we stopped for a drink. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg)
This is the normally finishing point for Day 2 of the Alta Via 1. A few kilometres after that I left J & J and proceded down the Fannes valley which had incredible canyons plus some nice waterfalls along they way. While I avoided a lot of the days climb, I had the longest distance to cover and after connecting with the bike track I made it back to the car after 24.5kms. I could have caught the bus to avoid the last roadside section but because they are so infrequent walking the last 8ks turned out to be a faster option. .jpg)
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Once I got to the car park in Cortina I had a 30 minute drive past a million cyclists up to the Lagazuoi cable car where I took it to meet everyone else at the top. Zali had arrived first, beating all of us by hours despite a long delay along the way due to a delayed bus and consequently missed connection. Jon and Jett were next having zipped up the 2nd huge climb, and I was last to arrive. After enjoying a hot chocolate at the top of the cable car we returned to the car and drove the 3.5 hours to just outside of Innsbruck which is our plan for tomorrow.
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