valhalla | Mountains of Legends

First off, if you ever find yourself at the edge of the Dolomites in August, don't get the fancy idea to go in and discover some of its iconic places. Don't be like me.

Just run away as fast as you can from its textbook examples of overtourism. Or at least keep as far away as possible from parking lots or gondolas, in combination with famous photo spots.

Some examples:

A German newspaper (link) writes that the Pragser Wildsee used to be invaded by more than 17.800 people on some days in August, until recently, when the authorities restricted vehicle access to the mountain lake.
A few researchers (link) inform that the Tre Cime parking enabled a peak of 13.500 occupiers on the 15th of August in 2018. I guess more than a hundred tourist drones must have hummed above their heads.
The native Ladin people of the Dolomites are gradually displaced as affluent tourists and entrepreneurs buy up their housing and land. In Venice, 100km south of the Dolomites, the anti-tourist resistance is already strong. Ever more, locals cry out that they're not Disneyland Venice.

Disperse, contribute and respect.

Don't destroy what you came for.

Refrain from the colonism of entitled consumerism.

Dolomiti Bellunesi

Dolomiti Civetta (Torre Trieste, Torre Venezia,...), Dolomiti San Martino, the Sella Pass...

Dolomiti Ampezzane with visits to 1) Tre Cime and 2) the Falzarego Pass (Cinque Torri)

Tre Cime di Lavaredo (aka Drei Zinnen): from left to right: Cima Piccola, Cima Grande and Cima Ovest

An intense flux of daytrippers moves between a large parking and a mountain hut that has been turned into some kind of shopping mall. Totally unnoticed to these crowds are two people, climbing Gelbe Mauer (Stefan Glowacz & Kurt Albert, 1996) next to the ultraclassic Spigolo Giallo (Eng: Yellow edge/arête) on the Cima Piccola di Lavaredo (the left peak of the cake in the photo above).

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Croda da Lago

We abseil down the Cinque Torri with Tofana di Rozes in the back

Alta Badia's edge at the Gardena Pass

Val Gardena

Though it is just one of many iconic churches, the Dolomites' ultimate cliché is the picture of the St. Johann church backed by a wall of spiky dolomite mountains that light up pink in the evening sun, a phenomenon the Ladin call Enrosadira. The famous scene is situated near the village of Santa Maddalena, more specifically in the locality of Ranui, a quiet place in Val di Funes.

The pinkish mountaintops in the background are the Odle group. If you'd be able to fly and follow the line of peaks down, you'd reach the jagged Seceda ridge, another icon of photo tourism.

We visit Nina on the other side of the Odle group, in Val Gardena, and today we walk towards the highest of the Odle group's skyhigh towers. The Furchetta and the Sas Rigais stand both just as tall and are only split by a deep vertical gap.

Santa Cristina Gherdëina is a good hike away from us now. The Firenze hut and the green hills have already disappeared since long. We cannot even see much anymore of the scrambling adventure beneath us. After several hours we reach the cross on top of Sas Rigais. It was not hard, but it took much longer than planned.

There is no time to celebrate our ascend. Now comes the real deal: the hasty descent by a steep but faster unfamiliar path. It seems like our delay will be received with inferno. On the top now we see the realm north of the Odle chain, where Val di Funes turns black in a blink of the eye. Quickly an impierceable darkness advances east. Only nervous flashes still interrupt the black forces. But never do these luminous blazes shed light on the waterbombardment between the clouds and the ground, if ground still covers the world at all.

The more familiar Gardena valleys and ranges to the south don't show anything more comforting. The constant movement of violent weather, like troops on the battlefield in which both sides are losing, releases cracking sounds that seem to announce the falling apart of the sky. Each time another rocky face, somewhere in the landscape, amplifies a deafening spine-shivering crack. We feel some drops. Then the rain intensifies.

Beneath us, milky clouds have risen and thickened and we expect soon to see nothing anymore. Our urgent descent leads down the east face of Sas Rigais and is entrusted to red painted dots. It will be faster than our way up, but way steeper and unknown. The wall soon seems to go straight down. Unsurprisingly we are now surrounded by a million of waterfalls and whatever might come down from the sky along them.

Through the mist, a cross shows in the sky. The top of the steep Furchetta seems dreadfully close, yet it goes eternally down without ever touching our Sas Rigais. An alarming sensation jolts our breath when our gaze slips to the exposed metal that balances on a godforsaken pinnacle that's not part anymore of the realm where the living dwell.

We often traverse. Sometimes the dots lead us further down into the unknown. More of this please! More down! It doesn't take long until we're soaked and sometimes we cling to vertical rock underneath the subtlest of bumps, as we long gravely to tone down the intense cold shower. I can hardly keep my eyes open from the ice cold water that races down my face.

Where will the red dots lead us? Up again? To that cross? And only then down? It seems like we are still very high. All looks grim. Lightning might strike. How much longer down? How much longer this steep?

[...]

At 6pm we smack open the door of the Firenze hut that's full of guests who look like they've been in pyjamas all day. Here is the show you all came for!: three people collapsing into a wooden bench, leaving a trail of water, and gasping for that sweet-looking pie behind the glass.