The Alpine accommodation huts in the Italian Dolomites are called ‘rifugi’ (the singular is ‘rifugio’) and they are long-established comfortable wood and stone buildings which offer dinner, bed and breakfast. They are of a higher standard than the Alpine huts in other countries (notably in France, where they can be very basic indeed).
Some are owned by the Italian Alpine Club (CAI: the Club Alpino Italiano) and these tend to be simpler and in more remote places. Other rifugi are privately-owned, have had significant investment, and offer a higher standard of accommodation.
Many rifugi are supplied by a goods trolley cable. Some are allowed to drive a jeep or a quad bike to their rifugi. A few have to rely on helicopters for food deliveries. Don’t worry – there is always food and drink available! These are not basic mountain huts which you may have seen in other countries. They vary, but some are virtually hotel grade and provide excellent food.
BREAKFAST & DINNER: Most rifugi include a half-board package, so your dinner and breakfast are included. A few rifugi only sell dinner on an a la carte basis, where you pay locally for what you choose – where we have booked a rifugio which operates like this we will tell you on your invoice. The food is simple but hearty, with a (small) choice of menu dishes, and the food is eaten in companionship with your fellow trekkers from many nations. Eating meals in community and meeting interesting fellow travellers is one of the most enjoyable experiences of trekking these routes.
LUNCH: Most days there are great places to eat along the way. Occasionally in more remote parts of the Dolomites there isn’t a suitable option for lunch, and where this happens we advise in the trip notes to request a packed lunch from your rifugio the night before – they are accustomed to that.
The bathroom facilities are usually shared. This is very much in keeping with the Alpine tradition of trekking the high mountains. Most rifugi offer showers, though some rifugi apply a charge for the use of a shower which you can pay locally if you want one.
Most rifugi offer a combination of private rooms and dormitories of differing capacities
For all bookings of 2 or more trekkers, we request private rooms wherever they are available at no extra cost to yourself. However, private rooms sell quickly, so early booking is essential.
Not all the rifugi have 2-bedded rooms, but we always ask the rifugi to put our clients into the room with the fewest number of beds possible if a private room isn’t available. We have built up excellent working relationships with the rifugi over the 17 years we’ve been sending clients to them, and they look after our guests well 🙂
Single rooms are extremely rare in the rifugi in the Dolomites. However, sharing a dormitory is certainly an authentic Alpine experience, more aligned to the spirit of Alpine trekking, and helps you meet other people on your route.
The rifugi open their diaries for the forthcoming summer season on different dates. Some open their diaries the summer before. Others won’t open until autumn or winter.
We will make your booking with each rifugio as soon as they open their diaries, and as agents we get to book slightly ahead of the public for some rifugi.
We will keep you informed on how the booking progress is going, but it can be a lengthy process waiting for all the rifugi to open their diaries. However it’s the only solution – if we wait till all the rifugi have opened their diaries, we will miss out on those that started earlier
When all the bookings are in place, we will guarantee your dates by email, and at that stage you can arrange your flights in the knowledge that your trek is confirmed.
Until we start the booking process we can’t be sure – you can imagine it is a big job to juggle so many rifugi and hotel nights to get the best solution. This is why on our booking form we ask clients to give us your preferred start date, as well as the earliest date you could start, and the last date you could end the trip.
We are available by WhatsApp to give personal support, and we will pro-actively contact you if we foresee a problem ahead, like bad weather. Some examples of how we’ve helped clients in the past are:
- We arranged emergency accommodation when a client was ill and the rifugio nearest to them was full, but we still managed to get them in for the night because we know the owner personally.
- When heavy snow fell in September one year, Ann called all our clients who were on the trails at the time to advise them of routes they could take safely (and we also have clear escape routes into our very detailed trip notes).
The Dolomites trekking season is a 3-month window from 20 June – 20 September, with just a few routes available earlier or later than this.
Each month of the trekking season in The Dolomites has different advantages:
In June there can still be snow in patches, and even fresh snowfall. For this reason the Alpine rifugi and the chairlifts usually open for summer trekking around 20 June each year.
July has more settled weather, is warmer and the wild flowers are at their most glorious, covering all the meadows and uplands.
August is the busiest month because Italians take their holidays in the Alps in August. The weather is usually hot in the daytime and pleasantly warm in the evenings.
In early September the huts and paths will be quieter, and the season ends around 20 September when early snow arrives in the Dolomites.
- A deposit of €400 per person is required for a Dolomites trek when you send in your booking form. This is so we can book the accommodation for you, as we also have to pay deposits on your behalf.
- The balance is due 10 weeks prior to departure. This ensures that there is plenty of time for you to receive your very comprehensive map pack which we post to you.
As soon as you know your dates! The accommodation on the Alta Via 1 sells our completely every year, and every year people are disappointed because there are no more beds available.
In 17 years of selling the AV1, we have NEVER had so much demand so early in the season, or see beds selling so fast!
They’re both awesome treks. You will not be disappointed by either of them.
In terms of best scenery, both trips include the most dramatic areas which are around Lagazuoi and Nuvolau, but only the northern section includes Lago di Braies, which is a spectacular turquoise lake but very popular in high season.
The main difference is that the AV1 North starts from Lago di Braies, NW of Cortina and covers the busiest section which also has the highest quality of accommodation.
The Highlights trek gives you some of the north section, and then goes into the less crowded middle section of the trek, and ends up in a much quieter part of the route. The level of accommodation isn’t as high in the south of the AV1 as in the north – this is because there are more independently-owned rifugi in the north which offer a higher level of comfort than the Club Alpino Italiano rifugi, which are more authentic Alpine rifugi and more prevalent in the southern section.
