Dolomites High Route 4: Cortina to Misurina - a short 15k hike, or so we thought

Since it was raining in the morning we took an easy start, slept in a little and had a good breakfast in our hotel. It just didn’t stop raining, so we really didn’t feel pushed to go out. But shortly after 10 we said: okay, let’s do it. We packed our gear, put the rain gear on and said: it’s like a 15k hike, probably three hours, just through the valley, not a big thing.

We got out of the hotel, it rained on us and then it was just a steep climb, actually on a forest track, but it was steep and steep and steep, and we were sweating. We came to the first rifugio, which was closed of course, but we stopped, found some shelter from the rain and started to dry off a little.

The farm track continued a little and then transformed into a real hiking path, a beautiful one through a forest that slowly widened. And then we stood in front of a wall and we were like: what? It was like a four or five hundred meter climb in the wall. It switched back a little, but it was just up, up, up. At one point it actually stopped raining and just drizzled on us, which was really nice. And as soon as we hit the wall we had some chamois jumping around in it, looking at us suspiciously. A really nice track up there.

Then we made it through a little gully onto the top of the ridge and it was just stunning, even though the view was limited because there were clouds hanging everywhere. We circled along the ridge and there was nobody out there. Then there was a ski lift and some ski pistes, and it was really ugly to see what the pistes looked like already, even though there was still snow on them. The wind picked up again, so we put our rain gear on and continued.

We dropped down on the other side to another rifugio, a hotel that actually sat on the road at a little pass. After that we continued on the road for a little while until the track went back into the next wall. And then there was another massive climb which we didn’t expect. It just went up and up and up.

At one point we reached a little plateau, right below a massive wall of pure rock faces. We had to cross it walking below these faces, and you could see all the scree that came down, so we went over the scree slopes. It’s just beautiful. The rain had stopped, the clouds went off and it was just a beautiful scenery, all by ourselves.

Then we came to a junction where the official trail would have taken us directly down to the lake. But we looked at the map and saw that we could actually go up on the next ridge, go through a different valley and then come back over that ridge again at the end of the valley, dropping down to the lake. And we just said: come on, let’s do it. So we went up on some ladders and some fun stuff to an old rifugio which was broken down already and had a little break. Everything was still covered in clouds.

But as soon as we dropped into the valley the clouds actually disappeared and you could see another massive rock face on the other side. There were like little pyramids, two behind each other, which looked like one with a shadow, but it was actually two pyramids. Just stunning views.

We continued down the valley, went up the slope again, made it up to the ridge and then just dropped down in very easy switchbacks, met the original trail that we were supposed to be on and circled around the lake.

Misurina looked a little bit like a city completely out of time. The buildings are very old, most of them not really in a good condition and half of them still closed. A little bit weird. I think the Giro d’Italia actually goes through this town, which is probably where it has some of its fame from.

Then we checked ourselves into a hotel, because we had thought it was going to be a complete rain day and wanted to dry our stuff again for the last stretch. Luckily it was not such a rainy day. The hotel was also a little bit out of time, but with nice owners. We had a good dinner and a glass of wine and enjoyed the day, even though it was way harder than we thought. It ended up being a seven or eight hour day for what we thought was a short 15k hike, so we are pretty shattered. And that is it.