Dolomiti Vertfest

July 22, 2025

When planning our parental leave trip, a big ride in the Dolomites stringing together many of the iconic passes was high on my list of goals. GCN’s video about linking the Giau, Fedia, Pordoi, and Falzarego was a source of inspiration while logging miles on the trainer these past few winters, so I decided to make it happen.

The Giau might be my favorite pass in the Dolomites. It has far less car traffic than many and ends with panoramic views in both directions. The Eastern side is a more reasonable gradient than the West, so I decided to begin the ride from Cortina heading up and over the Giau. In the early morning, it was calm and still a little bit chilly. I was greeted with a bluebird day and views of the gorgeous peaks near and far.

The Giau descent was marvelous once I made it past a couple of trucks. I’d ridden up this Western side earlier in the trip with the threat of thunder and hail, so to cruise down it on a perfect day felt like I was getting away with something. The 29 switchbacks went by all too quickly.

I decided to climb a little bit past Colle Santa Lucia before descending down to Saviner di Laste. This section had some gorgeous views including a church framed with Dolomite peaks behind. Almost immediately as I was leaving Saviner di Laste, a sign said that Passo Fedia was closed. I had a moment of panic since my planned route had me going over the Fedia and then up and over the Pordoi from the West, but I decided that the worst-case scenario would require descending back down the Fedia to the East and then going up and down the Pordoi from the East as well.

The Fedia starts out with a similar gradient to many of the other nearby passes and is tucked into a relatively tight valley for a ways, which makes the beginning not very memorable. But once you hit the ski area, it becomes memorable. First for the unrelenting gradient and a long, straight section. Then for the steep switchbacks. Then for the large, gorgeous lake and mountain views from the top. Knowing I had a long day ahead of me, and expecting it to be longer than planned with the closure, I tried not to push too hard on this section. At the far end of the lake, I hit the road closure and had to turn around. At least it was a fun, fast descent with very few cars!

From the valley, I followed a sign pointing North for Passo Pordoi and began a long arc to get to Arabba where I planned to stop for lunch. This section packed more of a punch in terms of climbing than I was expecting, including a number of switchbacks. By the time I made it to Arabba, I’d done 55 miles and 9,500 feet of climbing. Lunch was sorely needed. My waitress looked at me funny after I ordered a pizza diavola, two Cokes, and water, asking “is that all?” in a tone that implied I looked like I needed more. So I added spaghetti bolognese. It was an absurd amount of food, but I finished almost all of it.

From Arabba, it was straight up the Pordoi. Thankfully for my stomach, it wasn’t all that steep. I maintained a good, sustainable pace and took in the sights. I also enjoyed the moment when a large group of pro Israel–Premier Tech teammates slowly passed me. I guess their best climbers were all off at the Tour de France…

From the top of the Pordoi, I knew I just had to grind out one more real climb. The descent was fun and I had a bit of time to settle in on the flats before reaching the base of the Falzarego. Similar to the Pordoi, the gradient was never nasty on this one and so I was able to focus on getting the last bits of power out of my now pretty tired legs. I was amazed that the hydration and fuel I’d consumed throughout the day, along with three months of accumulated parental leave fitness, helped prevent me from cramping. I still had a bit in the tank when I made it to the pass, much of which I put into the pedals on the descent.

In all, this was the most vertical I’ve ever done on a bike (or otherwise) in a day at 14,291 feet. That vert was packed into only 90 miles of distance, meaning it was either up or down just about all day (7.5 hours moving; 8.5 hours elapsed). I’m so glad to have had the fitness, weather, and legs that I did for this adventure. I can now leave the Dolomites content.

Via Ferrata Tomaselli to Punta Fanes

July 19, 2025

The day after our successful afternoon speed mission on the Marino Bianchi route, Colin and I set our sights on the Cesco Tomaselli route up Punta Fanes. We were intrigued by the position of the route in the heart of the Tofana area and also its relatively high difficulty grade. We had originally considered doing the Col Dei Bos via ferrata as our way to access the high plateau near Lagazoui, but the weather looked like it was going to roll in pretty early in the afternoon, so we decided to focus on just the Tomaselli.

We rode the cable car up to the Lagazoui Hut, setting off from there down the busy trail at 10am. The approach wove steeply up towards the route with a switchback just before the saddle where the trail cuts through and the route splits off. We were at the plaque, geared up and starting to move just before 11am.

The very beginning of the route is reasonably steep as it traverses leftwards with a few fun moves before turning up the face and easing off pretty quickly. We enjoyed this bit and hoped that it wouldn’t be the only technical challenge of the route. The next sections were still fun even if easier and eventually brought us to a ledge where our route stayed right. From a prow, the final section of the route steepened back up nicely and we had a lot of fun from here through the summit, climbing as much as we could on the rock and ignoring the cable other than for clipping ourselves in. There’s an especially fun dihedral near the top and then an exposed slab making up the last section of the route.

We topped out at noon, having passed a few parties along the way. There were a couple of other parties enjoying the ambiance up there and we chatted them up for a bit before heading down the descent via ferrata. This route was reasonably steep in places and expeditiously brought us down to a trail on the East side of the peak. From here, it was a bit of loose gully descending until we were back on a well-worn trail. We decided to make a loop of it rather than going back up and over the saddle at the base of the route. This didn’t seem much longer and gave us some new views.

We decided to hike back up to the Lagazoui Hut at the end to enjoy lunch up there and ride the cable car back down. We made it there by 1:30pm, so about 3.5-hours hut to hut. A nice, warm meal with views was a perfect way to cap off the day and we were right to have not pushed our weather window since it started to rain just as we got back to the car.

Via Ferrata Bianchi to Cristallo Mezzo

July 18, 2025

Colin and I got the nod from our wives to take the afternoon together starting around our kiddo nap times, so we rendezvoused in Cortina at about 12:30pm, drove up to the Rio Gere chairlift, and hopped on as quickly as we could, bound for the Marino Bianchi route up Cristallo Mezzo. Upon reaching the top of the lift at 1:30pm, we saw a sign suggesting that it would keep running later than we’d thought—until 5pm. Was 3.5 hours enough time to do the scree gully ascent, route out and back, and descent? We weren’t sure but we decided to try.

After a brief descent from the lift and around the rifugio, we began the gully. It wasn’t so bad at first but eventually steepened and loosened enough that there were some moments of cursing. Nevertheless, my fitness felt really good and I was motivated to make that last chair down, so I blitzed up the ~2,300 ft gully in 45 minutes.

We geared up at the old, defunct rifugio and set off up the route from there at about 2:45pm. It was pretty mellow and meandering for the most part, punctuated by some steeper steps and ladders here and there. At 3:30pm, we finished the last little traverse to the summit. It was awesome to get this different vantage point from above Cortina having now been on many of the other peaks in the area. What a grand amphitheater of Dolomitic limestone!

Since it had taken us 2 hours to get here and we only had 1.5 hours to make it back to the lift, we decided to enjoy the views for a few minutes rather than immediately turning around. After getting our fill, we started down at 3:40pm, expecting to miss the lift and walk to the car. We enjoyed facing outwards on much of the descent, taking in the scenery and watching parties across the way walking across the Cliffhanger Bridge near the start of the Ivano Dibona. We were back at the saddle by 4:15pm and quickly removed our alpine diapers.

It turned out that the scree was perfect for surfing down and we were able to really open it up on the descent. We began to believe we could make it to the chairlift by 5pm and kept charging. At 4:50pm, we nodded to the chairlift operator as we loaded up to float back down to the car. Magic.

While it felt a bit rushed throughout, it was a great way to spend an afternoon with a good friend in the mountains. If we’d had more time, I would have liked to have added the first section of the Ivano Dibona to amortize the scree gully effort.