Tre Cime di Lavaredo

PeaksSouth Tyrol, Dolomites, Italy

August·Peaking now

Jul–Sep

Everything runs: the loop is clear, Auronzo, Lavaredo and Locatelli are all staffed into late September, the 444 shuttle climbs from Dobbiaco, and wildflowers break from the rock in July. Toll-road slots sell out and the car park fills before dawn.

Year-round The three towers and their overhanging north walls stand every day of the year; the road, the huts, the shuttle and the snow-free loop are all seasonal, and so are the crowds.

The Tre Cime di Lavaredo — Drei Zinnen, or "Three Peaks," in German — are three vertical dolomite towers that rise straight out of the alpine meadows at the heart of the Italian Dolomites. Their overhanging north walls, hundreds of metres of pale rock, are among the most storied climbing faces in the Alps. The tallest tower, Cima Grande, reaches 2,999 metres, flanked by Cima Ovest and Cima Piccola, and all three are cut from dolomite laid down as a coral reef in a tropical sea some 250 million years ago, then lifted high and eroded into these blades. Paul Grohmann first reached the summit of Cima Grande in 1869, but it was the sheer north face — long thought impossible — that made the peaks legendary among climbers. Today the towers are the emblem of the UNESCO-listed Dolomites, inscribed in 2009, and they once marked the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary, whose First World War front ran right past their feet. The classic way to take them in is the trail that loops the whole massif, roughly ten kilometres that reveal a new profile at every turn — three separate blades from one side, a single unbroken wall from the next. Most walkers set off from Rifugio Auronzo and circle past Rifugio Locatelli, the hut that sits opposite the three sheer north faces. Reaching Auronzo now means a toll road up the mountain, restricted and booked ahead through the busy summer, when the car park fills before dawn. The path is usually clear of snow only from about June to October; through the long winter the towers belong to the cold and the ski-tourers.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The ledges are an ancient reef — the flat horizontal bands striping the pale north walls are sediment layers of a 250-million-year-old coral reef, tilted upright and stripped bare by erosion.
For the head-on view, walk to Rifugio Locatelli — only from its terrace do all three north walls line up shoulder to shoulder; the rest of the loop sees them edge-on.
Reverse the usual loop — most walkers circle the peaks in the same direction, so setting out the opposite way leaves you long, quiet stretches on the far side.
The loop is only walkable in the warm months — the mountain huts open and the trail clears from roughly June to October; outside that window it becomes a winter mountaineering route.
Mountain weather turns fast — carry warm layers and grippy boots even in July, when snow can linger on the shaded northern stretches and cloud can hide the towers within an hour.

Things to do

1
Walk the loop around the three towers
The roughly ten-kilometre circuit is the classic day out and an easy line to follow, yet it packs in the whole mountain — flower meadows on the sunny side, the old war tunnels near Forcella Lavaredo, then bare stony passes beneath the sheer north walls. Most walkers round it in about four hours.
2
Catch the dawn alpenglow on the north faces
For a few minutes at first light the pale north walls flush from grey to deep amber while the valleys below stay dark. Walkers and photographers climb up in the cold to reach the classic viewpoints before sunrise, when all three faces line up and seem to burn together.
3
Step through the First World War tunnels
Around the base of the towers, galleries and trenches blasted into the rock during the mountain war of 1915–1917 are still open to walk through. Step inside and the passages are cold and dark, and the peaks appear through the narrow gun slots exactly as the soldiers holding this line saw them.
4
Cross the snowfields under the walls
Even into early summer, ribbons of snow linger on the shaded northern side of the loop, right beneath the vertical faces. Kicking steps across the firm white slopes, with the towers rising straight overhead, is the wildest-feeling stretch of the whole circuit.
5
Stand directly beneath the towers
Where the trail runs closest to the rock, you can walk to the very foot of walls that rise hundreds of metres in a single sweep. Craning up from the scree at their base, with climbers just visible as dots on the face, is how the true scale finally lands.