Words by Rob Savin

He could see the lake from the pass.

Emerald green, six hundred metres below, with people swimming in it. Stephen Ross had already done close to fifteen hundred metres of ascent that day. There was a scree descent to get down there, steps eroded to the point of interest, and then a six-hundred-metre vertical climb on the other side to the refuge where they were finishing. He made himself a promise: get to the lake and get in it.

He did. Fifteen minutes in the water, body temperature dropping, the day resetting itself. He got out and looked up at the climb.

"I just thought, this is like walking up Ingleborough," he says. "I've done that a hundred times."

They flew up it. Overtook everyone. The refuge at the top — Lagazuoi, at 2,750 metres — turned out to be the highlight of the entire trip.

There's a sauna up there, as it happens. Not that they used it. Sometimes the knowledge that a thing exists is enough.

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Stephen and Richard are part of the Big Trail Adventures team. They walked the Alta Via 1 in September, which is late in the season, and booked their refuges a month out, which is very late for a trail this popular. This meant dormitories rather than private rooms, and whatever beds remained when they arrived — top bunk, bottom bunk, by the door, by the window, a lottery each time. In one refuge they were upgraded to a room of their own because the original dormitory already had fourteen people in it and the fifteenth space was technically theirs. They considered this the miracle that it was.

Their bags weighed five kilos each. After day one, a small redistribution of weight left Richard carrying six or seven and Stephen carrying three or four. Both of them describe this as ideal. They had one set of clothes, two sets of socks, full winter gear they didn't need, first aid kits they didn't open, sleeping bag liners, and charging cables. What they did not have: towels. Stephen drip-dried, or wore wet clothes for a while. He found this preferable to carrying a damp towel for a week. On balance, he's perhaps right.

"We saw people who were much lighter body weights than us carrying fifteen, sixteen, seventeen kilos. As a proportion of body weight, that's very much higher. I do think it makes the trail more enjoyable if you can carry a light bag."

They flew into Venice from Manchester and Edinburgh respectively, both on early flights, arriving within half an hour of each other. A taxi to Lago di Braies in the heart of the Dolomites by half past two, bags on, straight out onto the trail.

What the Trail Is Actually Like

The Alta Via 1 runs for 120 kilometres through the northern Dolomites, staying high throughout — between 1,500 and 2,700 metres — and without passing through a single town or village. You rely on the refuges for food and water. There are around thirty of them along the route and its variations, though at the end of the season some are already closed, which means a packed lunch from your hut the previous night becomes mandatory.

What strikes both of them, talking about it, is the constancy of the scenery. Not the peaks appearing at intervals, or the views revealing themselves at passes — but the fact that every single metre of the trail has something worth looking at. Limestone in every form: massive cliff faces, boulders, scree, the pale dust of the path itself. Mountains rising a thousand metres above the trail on every side.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so jaw-droppingly beautiful," Richard says. "You feel very small. It's quite a humbling experience."

The surface changes constantly — scree where you slip half a step back for every step forward, boulder fields that demand full attention, and then stretches of what Stephen describes as almost white concrete double-track where you can open up and move. Over a long day, these things average out. They had worked out a formula at Big Trail Adventures for how fast different types of walker move, had identified themselves as fast-packers, and came in within ten to fifteen minutes of the predicted time each day across seven, eight, nine-hour stages.

Stephen had worried about this schedule before they left. He needn't have, he says.

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The Refuges

The food, while with some variation between the independently run mountain huts, was good. In the northern section: German in character, meat and potatoes. In the south: pasta first, then a main, then dessert. All of it filling, all of it earned. Breakfast was bread and cheese and ham and pastries.

The showers ran on tokens. Five euros bought you five minutes — typically two and a half hot, two and a half cold, at the more generous end of the scale. At the less generous end, two and a half minutes total, most of it hot if you were lucky, and that's that. Richard says it's surprising what you can accomplish if you prepare carefully before putting the money in.

Eye masks are essential. Earplugs even more so. The dormitories start cold and, once occupied, become very warm. Nobody opens the window. The toilets range from comfortable to what Stephen diplomatically describes as "squatters." Outdoor shoes come off at the door; slippers or sandals are required inside. You need to be genuinely tired to sleep in the dorms.

On the first night, over dinner, they met four Australians who had booked six months ahead, and a German couple in their mid-seventies who had not booked at all. The couple were members of the Alpine Club, which they felt gave them a reasonable claim on floor space if nothing else was available. They had, in fact, slept on the floor the previous night. They were relaxed about it. They considered the twelve-person dormitory a step up.

"I think they were hardened Alpinists," Richard says, "and they thought it was a bonus."

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On Planning

The Alta Via 1 is not a trail that necessarily punishes poor planning — the refuges are numerous enough, the route varied enough, that adjustments are possible on the fly. But it rewards good planning disproportionately. Book early and you choose your stages. Book late and your stages choose you. Stephen and Richard had one thirty-kilometre day with two thousand metres of ascent because that was where the available beds fell.

They got through it. The dip in the lake helped.

What they'd tell someone planning to do it now: fly in the night before and stay near Cortina, which puts more of the first-day refuges within reach. Book in May when the season opens if you want any choice of where to sleep. Think about the ascent and descent figures, not just the kilometres — a number of people they met were recalibrating their plans on the move because they hadn't understood this at the start.

Both of them came back looking at TikTok videos of the Alta Via 1. They say this with the slight embarrassment of people who would previously have been dismissive of such a thing. The videos, they admit, accurately present this incredible route.

"The views are outstanding, the food is great," Stephen says. "It really is a tremendous trail."

Next time, they're hoping for private rooms. And possibly the Via Ferrata routes. And the Alta Via 2. And maybe the Tour of Monte Rosa. And Monte Matterhorn. And some of the lesser-known Alpine circuits they'd previously overlooked…

The Dolomites, it turns out, have more in them than one trip can hold.