Eight Boots Abroad

A month of hiking and climbing through our favorite place on earth, meeting up with friends and family from around the world – what an absolute dream come true!

Our four weeks in the Dolomites were spent in 4 different regions – we began in the Tre Cime/Sexten region along the Austria/Italy border and slowly made our way south and west through the mountain range, ending in the Brenta Dolomites at the most western edge. Coordinating this month of our sabbatical was an amusing challenge for me. Howie and I had mapped out a plan that included 12 nights up high in mountain huts (“rifugios”) and 18 nights of camping. Many rifugios are privately owned, usually by an individual family – the hut passed from one generation to the next. While sweet, nostalgic and wonderful, this also means there is no central reservation system for the hundreds of remote huts. The process for some hut reservations are so archaic that I practically had to etch my request on a stone tablet or send a smoke signal and wait weeks/months for a response. But persistence paid off, and after 6 months of work, we were able to secure reservations and link together several hut-to-hut sections through (1) Sexten/Tre Cime, (2) Cortina/Tofana De Rozes, (3) Val Gardena, and (4) the Brenta. As a fun logistical bonus we also coordinated this month with amazing friends from London and Colorado, as well as Howie’s cousin’s family in Italy!

SEXTEN/TRE CIME: Tre Cime is one area of the Dolomites where evidence of World War 1 is constantly present. The region is essentially an enormous, fascinating outdoor museum. Routes to reach summits often include extensive wartime tunnels dug through mountains, hiking paths follow war trenches (hundred year-old barbed wire still present), and via ferrata routes follow along the same lines where original mountain cables were once secured by Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops.

Our week in the Sexten/Tre Cime included an ascent up through Val Fiscolina, climbs to the summits of Tori Toblin, Monte Paterno (twice), Croda Fiscolina Est, and a return to Innichen via Val Sassovecchio. We spent 4 nights in the high mountain huts of Zsigmondy/Comici (I LOVED this one) and Rifugio Antonio Locatelli. This area was especially fun for us because we had also taken the kiddos here back in 2019. It was amazing to see how much their climbing strength and technical skill set have improved in the past 5 years; via ferrata routes and summits that had once been a struggle were now easily conquered.

CORTINA/TOFANA DI ROZES: We then moved on to Cortina and the Tofana di Rozes region. The town of Cortina d’Ampezzo is quite busy at baseline, but with plans to host the 2026 Winter Olympics, there was even more chaos and construction than usual. We were very lucky to find one of the last tent spots at a small, quiet campground just outside of town.

We spent one day hiking a circuit from Passo Falzarego, with stunning views above Passo Giau and the towers of Cinque Torri.

We also spent 2 nights in Rifugio Pomedes, perched on a ridge of the Tofana di Rozes massif, high above Cortina. This strategic (and very cozy) hut allowed Howie and me to do one of the most iconic via ferrata routes in this region of the Dolomites – the spire of Punta Anna. We had fairly moody weather for our adventure, which meant the views were pretty limited, but also gave a special atmosphere to the day – mountain spires peeking in and out of the mist all around us as we worked our way up the route. We were fortunate to get a brief weather clearing as we reached the summit, with full views of the Tofana and across the valley to the Croda da Lago.

VAL GARDENA: We moved on from Cortina to begin our “Tour di Dolomiti with Friends!” At different points we reunited with our former roommate Ewen and his family from London, and also our dear friends/former roommate Josh and Justin from Colorado. Our days were spent hiking and climbing, and evenings spent camping or together in mountain huts. We first enjoyed a quick warm-up via ferrata up Piccolo Cir, along with a relatively brief but exciting hailstorm while en route to the summit.

Next we undertook our biggest climbing objective in the vicinity of Val Gardena – a via ferrata route to the summit of Sass Rigais nestled among the Odles (Needles). Howie and I have had our eyes on this climb since we viewed it from the nearby Seceda ridgeline in 2019. On the first day in this area we enjoyed a pleasant hike in from Seceda with our old roommate Ewen and his family. The following morning we completed the long but quite easy ferrata to the summit of Sass Rigais with Ewen and his sister Lauren while the kiddos took a well deserved rest day in the rifugio.

We also spent an afternoon with our friends Josh and Justin hiking the beautiful Adolf Munkel Trail through the famous Val de Funes, with the towers of Sass Rigais and the Odles (that we had climbed through from the other side days earlier) towering high above.

Don’t worry, it’s iced tea!

DOLOMITI DI BRENTA: Our final week in the Dolomites was spent with Howie’s cousin Benji, his wife Clara, and their 4 sweet kiddos in the Brenta region! This was a new area of the Dolomites for us, geographically separated from the rest of the mountain range by the Adige River, and hundreds of apple orchards (who knew Northern Italy was Europe’s 2nd largest producer of apples?!). In some ways, the other areas of the Dolomites can feel very Austrian/German (food, language, and culture), while the Brenta had a more thoroughly Italian feel.

The cousins welcomed us with a delightful homemade Italian feast by true Italian Nonni (grandparents) in their sweet mountain home in the village of Giustino. It was so meaningful and special to share this time with family and watch our kids play with their cousins (cugini!) who live a world away.

We then spent 5 days hiking and climbing through the heart of the Brenta – our longest route being the 7.5 hours we spent climbing on the Via Ferrata Bocchette Alte. Not going to lie, this route was physically (and emotionally) challenging for a number of our crew, but the scenery was stunning. Annnnnd, the best part of a hard day in the mountains here is at the end of the day you always find yourself in a remote, cozy mountain hut, surrounded by other dirty and exhausted climbers. Evenings are spent at communal tables – sharing drinks, dinner, and stories from the day’s adventures… and then dreaming up crazy plans and routes for the following day! It truly makes my heart sing, and I very much wish we had this culture in our mountains back home.

Following the long day on the Brenta Alte, we enjoyed another amazing day of ferrata in the Brenta Centrale, as cousin Benji kindly took the kiddos for a day of relative rest on a hike to visit the Rifugio Brentei for lunch. This freed us up to do the Centrale ferrata on a path with spectacular views, and even more spectacular exposure from a series of tiny ledges!

With our week in the Brenta region complete, we all caravanned 4.5 hours to the town of Trieste with the cousins for a another big, fantastic, homemade Italian dinner and little cousins sleepover. Spending this lovely time with our extended family made me a bit homesick (in the very best way possible).

Amusing highlights (and not-so-highlights) for the month:

Highlight: In general, I was surprised by how much we enjoyed European campgrounds. In general, we’re more the solo/quiet backcountry-type campers, but once we adjusted to the amusing chaos of large European campgrounds, we actually really enjoyed the social aspect of it all. Our kiddos favorite campground was in Val Gardena, near Alpe di Siusi (Camping Seiser Alm). What kid wouldn’t love a place where the evenings transform into wild, unrestrained kiddo chaos from 7-10pm? They made fast new BFFs from The Netherlands, UK, and Italy. We also made wonderful adult friends from Wales, Romania, Nepal, and The Netherlands.

Lowlight: Somewhere along the line, one of our kiddos seems to have contracted some type of GI worms. There are several possible sources: Morocco, Bosnia, Albania, several large bodies of water that we’ve swam in, or maybe one of the many livestock fields we’ve hiked through. Luckily, Google Translate and a knowledgeable pharmacist helped us figure out the right treatment. Anyway, now we’re ALL on a de-worming medications (as is protocol, apparently). So now, in addition to tallying the number of flea infestations, we’re also tallying the number of times we find ourselves de-worming with various pharmaceutical options from around the world.

Lowlight #2 (but also kind of amusing): There was a very unfortunate 24-hour period of time where we inadvertently found ourselves on the radar of the local police authorities. We were in such a rush to pack up our tent, drive to a new area, take a bus to the correct trailhead, and hike 4 hours to our hut before an afternoon storm… that we rushed out of our campground without settling the final €80 of our bill. We had no clue we had done this until we used the sparse reception at our mountain hut, and were greeted by 3 emails: (1) from the campground: “You have left the premises this morning without final payment,” (2) from the campground, time-stamped 10 minutes later: “Your license plate number and passport information have now been reported to the local authorities,” and finally (3) from the regional police, time-stamped 20 minutes later: “You must make payment on your delinquent balance immediately or your information will be turned over to our regional prosecutors!” My goooooodness, that escalated quickly – gaaaah! Luckily, we had wired our original deposit to the campground months ago, and I still had their bank account information. I was able to use our spotty reception to wire them the €80 balance, and the next day we received an email stating that our payment had been noted we had been removed from INTERPOL’s Most Wanted Criminals List.

And my final thoughts… after having all four of us live in a 6′ x 6′ backpacking tent for the past 6 weeks (with all of our belongings piled inside), I once again confirmed that I’m definitely the only organized soul in our crew – the other 3 are pure chaos monsters. I’m suuuuuuper-excited to be taking a break from our excessively-cozy tent life for a few months!

Italy – Dolomites – Howie’s Addendum

Leaving the beautiful alps, chocolate, and cheese of Switzerland behind us was hard to do, but the excitement of a month adventuring in the Dolomites lessened our sorrows! From our past visits to the area, the Dolomites and the Swiss Alps had always seemed to me so different in character that I had always assumed they were quite distant from one another. This time around, after traveling overland between the two locations, I was surprised by how close in proximity they truly are. Thanks to Europe’s compact geography, it’s about the same distance to travel between Zermatt and Cortina d’Ampezzo as it would be to go from Denver to Telluride, never leaving the borders of Colorado! 

Sonya in particular has always aspired to spend an extended length of time in the Dolomites, so I was very excited to see her dream come true. We did our best to satiate her nearly infinite appetite for via ferrata (or spicy hikes, as we sometimes like to call them), and my nearly infinite appetite for polenta mit kӓse and spaghetti bolognese in the rifugios. 

One of my biggest joys while exploring throughout the month was seeing the progression of our adventures unfolding like a story with each new summit we climbed. It was delightful to look out from a peak and see the numerous other summits we had visited rising up from the valleys, with each new vantage point providing a unique perspective on the sites of our previous adventures.

Other highlights from the month for me included:

The climb up Punta Anna’s via ferrata route in the Tofane – the ridge this route ascends is pretty wild! It felt extra special climbing through the mist, with occasional clearings in the clouds giving glimpses of the terrifyingly jagged towers and otherworldly spires all around. 

Meeting up with our friends and family from home and abroad – it was wonderful to see familiar friendly faces, especially as I was feeling a bit sad about missing the start of the school year back home.

Having the summit all to ourselves and napping for an afternoon at the summit of Torre Toblin, an exposed tower facing the iconic Dolomite summits of Tre Cime and Monte Paterno.

Seeing the kiddos conquer their nerves to climb some incredibly challenging and exposed routes – in particular, the long and complex Brenta Alte ferrata, Piccolo Cir, and Torre Toblin. Also seeing the kiddos crush a hike between huts in the Brenta, while being absolutely drenched in a downpour for two hours and never losing their positive attitudes.

Enjoying an incredible sunrise from the summit of Monte Paterno with my dreamy wife.

Feeling fast, strong, and mountain-fit after so many days on the trails!

Attempting to speak Italian, quite poorly! Grazie Duolingo, la formica non è nello zucchero, ma le mie scarpe sono elettriche?!

Having a chance to visit the Brenta Centrale via ferrata route for one of the best hiking days of my life. Extra thanks to my amazing cousin Benji for taking the kiddos for the day so Sonya and I could explore this amazing place filled with misty ridges, swirling clouds that constantly changed the mood of the atmosphere, and myriad sandcastle-like towers. It was magical!

And my one tiny current lowlight:

We have hiked so many kilometers this summer, and spent so much time outside (about 50 nights camping!), that we are all a bit beat up at the moment. Feet are hurting a bit – need some rest! Hopefully some nights indoors will help us heal as we get ready for our next adventures. 

Grazie Dolomiti, we can’t wait to return! Now on to Croatia!