Our last stop was one of the most popular regions in the Dolomites, home to the Instagram-famous Secëda ridge and also Alpe di Siusi high altitude alpine meadow. Note to travelers, the lifts in Val Gardena are not included in the same payment systems as others in the Dolomites. The points passes that we used elsewhere were not accepted here. You can buy separate lift passes that are only for Val Gardena, but even those don’t include the Secëda cable car. It’s the most popular thing in the most popular place… I guess.
Reminder, this blog post is the last of a series of four highlighting our activities in the dolomites. Our four bases over the sixteen nights were.:
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO
SAN VIGILIO DI MAREBBE
SAN MARTINO DI CASTROZZA
SANTA CRISTINA / VAL GARDENA
Anyway, back to our activities. The top item on the list was to visit the Secëda ridge. The typical route up is to take the Secëda cable car which we heard can be a madhouse at popular times. ChatGPT said as much.
As we put together our detailed plans Chrissy learned that the Col Raiser cable car took you to a trail that allowed you to hike over to the famous ridge. What was even better is that Col Raiser was pretty much walking distance from our studio apartment in Santa Cristina. There’s a bus that will take you from town to the Col Raiser station, too, but my understanding was that it only runs from 8am until noon. Since we had a car, and the walk had a pretty good climb to it, I decided to be lazy and just drive there and pay to park.
Hike: Col Raiser – Secëda – Forcella Pana – Florence Refuge
View on AllTrails
6.2mi Length
1,814ft Elevation gain
This hike was a wonderful loop that starts at the top of the cable car, which is located at Almhotel Col Raiser. The hike takes you into a small, gorgeous wooded area before you start to ascend to the Secëda Ridge. We started early, and went the direction that AllTrails suggested… which was opposite of what most people were doing. I was very pleased with that decision because it gave us a mostly peaceful hike until we met with the majority of the crowd near the ridge.
Heads up. This trail, believe it or not, includes a part that requires a €5 toll per person! I’m pretty sure that you can hike around it, which you should almost certainly do. The best views of the ridge are from the view points near the top of the Fermeda chair lift outside the toll section. Anyway, I happened to have €10 with me, and against Chrissy’s recommendation… I paid the toll.
The trail that I linked above is a loop that starts and ends at the Col Raiser cable car station. But the high point on the trail passes next to the top of the Fermeda chair lift. Since we had unlimited three-day passes for riding the lifts in Val Gardena, we took the Fermeda chair lift down, and then rode it back up to continue our loop. Had it not been prepaid, I wouldn’t have done that because that lift was €28 euro per person, and not really necessary. I’m glad we did it because… hey, who doesn’t love riding a chair lift!?
Alpe di Siusi
The other popular hiking network takes you up to view the Alpe di Siusi meadow. We had a few alternative routes on our list but decided to do the longer one. The trail head requires two chairlift rides to access. We walked from our apartment to the St Christina to Monte Pana chair lift. After that lift we then took the Monte Pana to Monte Sëura chair lift to start the trail. The hike itself is a point to point which starts at the top of the second chairlift and takes you back down to the bottom of the second lift.
Hike: Monte Sëura – Rifugio Vicenza – Monte Pana
View on AllTrails
5.4mi Length
1,020ft Elevation gain
The hike takes you up Rifugio Vicenza which is the highest point on the trail. Toilets, apple strudel and cappuccino, because why not? This hike is a point to point so after the 1,000 foot ascent, you go down 2,000 feet. (from 7,300 down to 5,300).
When we got to the beginning of the trail Chrissy had the wonderful idea to just take the Monte Pana to Monte Sëura (the second chairlift) back up to the top and have lunch at Malga Cason, which is just a bit down hill from the lift station.
BTW, at the top of the chair lift, there is another option for descending… a zipline! I’ve never been particularly interested in those, but this one was so high and went so far that I was really tempted. I’m sure I’m too heavy to do it, but I didn’t ask.
On our last day we just hung out in town. We had our last pizza in Italy, and took the lifts back up to have a Ritter Sport chocolate bar in the mountains.
