Day 4 – From Croda da Lago To Cortina

Sep 28, 2022

Today’s Adventure

On September 28th Cindy and I enjoyed a challenging hike high above the resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo. The plan was to start at Passo Giau, hike around the massive Croda da Lago, pause at a rifugio on Lago Federa for lunch, and then finish our day with a long, steep descent into Cortina.

Transportation posed a bit of a challenge for this hike because the bus we needed to get us up to the trailhead at Passo Giau from Cortina doesn’t run this time of year. Fortunately Cindy was able to find a car service that picked us up at the bus depot and took us directly to the trailhead. It was a very cold start for the hike, 30 degrees with a windchill in the teens, but we had dressed appropriately and had no issues staying warm. That said we had hoped to have breakfast at the Berghotel Passo Giau but they were not open when we arrived, so we ended up sitting on their not-so-sunny sun terrace and eating our contingency sandwiches under rather chilly (and coffee-deprived) conditions.

We left Passo Giau on Trail 436, which took us over Forcella Col Piombin and then Forcella Giau. From there we started across a stunning plateau that ran along the southern shoulder of the Croda Da Lago. The weather was gray and overcast, but that really brought out the colors in the immense stone peaks along the way. The trail was muddy and rocky in places but the conditions improved as we made the ascent to Forcella Ambrizola, the saddle between the Croda Da Lago and the sharp-peaked Becco di Mezzodi. From that there it would be an almost continuous descent all the way back to Cortina.

After cresting over Forcella Ambrizola we followed Trail 434 down to Lago Federa, a small but very scenic alpine lake that nicely reflected the autumn colors in the surrounding trees. The Rifugio Croda da Lago, today’s lunch destination, was located on the edge of this lake and is a popular hiking destination for obvious reasons. Cindy decided to try the house Pinot Nero instead of her usual unfiltered wheat beer, which made for a rather unusual ‘Two Beers With A View’ photograph. Stuart had the classic hiker’s lunch, two fried eggs and speck (smoked and air-dried prosciutto) over rösti potatoes – there’s nothing like it after a long morning on the trail!

Our afternoon trail to Cortina rather predictably followed a lovely stream through the forest so that gave us something nice to look at (and listen to) as we worked our way down the mountain. Part of the trail shared a private road that had signage for both a 20% grade and a 20 kph speed limit – yes, it was that steep in places. When we came out of the forest we stumbled upon a shuttle bus that was headed back into Cortina. The driver was nice enough to give us a free lift so I guess we looked a bit bedraggled by that point. He dropped us at the main bus depot where we caught the bus back to Dobbiaco. From Dobbiaco it was a short and very familiar train ride back to Innichen.

This was a truly memorable hike for the excellent scenery and almost total isolation. We only saw around a dozen people all day, and most of those were along the final leg from Lago Fedara back down to Cortina – we had the main part between Forcella Col Piombin and Forcella Ambrizola entirely to ourselves except for one rather reclusive marmot! All told we walked 9.2 miles in a little over five hours with about 1,000 feet of total elevation gain

To return to the main page for Innichen click here.

To return to the main page for the entire trip click here.