Lagazuoi and Passo Falzarego Site Features

The Rifugio Lagazuoi terrace

At 2,752 metres, looking across to Marmolada, the Tofane, Civetta, Pelmo and the Sella group. Arguably the best single panorama in the Dolomites, and four minutes from a car park.

The Galleria del Lagazuoi

The Italian mine tunnel, descending about a kilometre inside the mountain from near the summit to the Falzarego road. Helmet and headtorch essential; there are fixed cables and steps.

The Cengia Martini

The ledge the Italians held on the south face, with restored positions and walkways.

The mine craters

Where charges brought down parts of the face -- visible from the pass without climbing anything.

Passo Falzarego stands at 2,105 metres between the Ampezzo valley and the Val Badia, at the meeting point of several major Dolomite groups.

The Piccolo Lagazuoi rises directly above it to 2,778 metres, presenting a steep south face to the pass -- which is precisely why it mattered militarily and why the tunnelling happened where it did.

The rock is the pale Dolomia that gives these mountains their name and their colour at sunset.

Above the treeline the ground is scree, alpine grass and bare rock, with snow lying well into summer in the gullies.

The view from the top spans from the Marmolada glacier in the south-west round to the Tofane immediately east -- one of the few points from which the structure of the whole Dolomite region is legible.