Italian Dolomites Walking Holiday – Spectacular Schlern/Sciliar

Italian Dolomites Walking Holiday – Spectacular Schlern/Sciliar

The Fourth day of our walking holiday was one of the best days of my life! Schlern/Sciliar was the first Dolomite that we saw on the drive over to Kastelruth and we’d seen it peeking out of the clouds every so often throughout the week so far. I wanted to get to the top and walk along that ridge soooo much! But the weather forecast didn’t look too promising. We woke up early (just in case) but it was really misty. Somehow I persuaded Marc to head towards Schlern, but we weren’t that hopeful that we’d actually be able to climb it.

I had some feedback that I shouldn’t add so many photos to this blog…but I’m afraid I can’t help it for this one. I just spent hours narrowing them down, but I took quite a few! If you want to see a larger version of the photos, just click on them!

You have to climb up a hill, and then walk down into a valley before you can start to climb through the trees to Schlern. We figured if the clouds started to lift by this time, we could continue. The clouds were a little better, but they stayed on the North West peak. Marc made a deal with me that we could climb up to the clouds, but we’d have to turn back if it was still cloudy at the top of the ridge.

First we had to climb down into the valley. Why is it always so demoralising to walk down a hill, right before you climb up a mountain!? Ah well. Next, we walked through the gorgeous forest past a pretty waterfall. The path started to zig-zag up towards Schlern’s ridge. Most of the time, when we peeked through the trees, all we could see was the white mist and clouds.

I was really worried that the mist would continue to block all the views, and force us to turn back. As we climbed through the trees, the clouds were pretty thick on this side of the mountain. However as we walked up, the clouds finally started to clear! Mist be gone!!

It was a pretty steep, but spectacular whenever we got to see through the clouds.

It was a grassy, rocky wonderland.

Once we made it up to the ridge it was really clear. We got to meet all the cows who live up in the clouds, and get ready for the final climb up to the rock-covered summit.

We made it!

The world was cloud-free for about 30 minutes, so we had time to look around at the amaaazing views. I spent quite a long time taking this panorama. Then I spent even longer trying to spot all the places we had already explored down below. Clouds covered this summit for the rest of the day so we were even more chuffed by our lucky timing.

Once we’d climbed down from the summit, we walked along Schlern’s  main ridge. As we moved along, the clouds descended, so we didn’t get to see the surrounding mountains. It was a little frustrating as we were sure there were more gorgeous mountain views just out of sight.

After walking along the main ridge we had to climb down onto another pathway below the spiky tops of the Dolomites. We knew that there should have had good views of the surrounding Dolomites. To start with, all we saw was mist. But we were so, so lucky! Just as we arrived, the clouds lifted again. These photos don’t do the view justice, but I’ll post lots anyway.

These mountains seem like a gigantic, impenetrable, wall of rock.

This is where I did my jumping photo (at the top of the post)

The weather changed again at the end of this ridge. This time it started to rain really heavily, so we escaped to have some lunch in one of the walking huts.
By the time we set off again, the sky was grey and threatening, but it wasn’t actually raining very hard.

We kept walking around a corner to look back at Schlern’s ridge, and out to the Alpe di Siusi. It is really nice to see these views after a few days walking because we could look out for Mount Bulacia, Mount Seuc and all the walking routes we had already explored.

We were also spoiled by a new view of the Alpe di Siusi.

We were pretty tired, but still had enough energy to walk back across this gorgeous countryside back to our hotel.

Oh! And although I didn’t mention the pretty wild flowers on this day, I did still take photos of them. Some of seemed to grow straight out of the mountain rocks! My mum knew all of the flowers in my previous post, so hopefully she’ll know these too. Here they are:

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13 thoughts on “Italian Dolomites Walking Holiday – Spectacular Schlern/Sciliar

  1. The blue are the real McCoy, gentians. The deep purple at the end are orchids. Either pyramidal or early summer orchids. The low pale purple is wild thyme. Cant see the others closely enough to help. You know who. Love Love. L

    1. The gentians are gorgeous aren’t they!? I thought you might like their colour.

      I had no idea the purple one was thyme! It looks so different to the wild thyme we saw in Greece. 🙂

      Did you click on the images? You should be able to see a larger version that way…

  2. Wow! Gorgeous pictures. I would love to walk and exhaust my energy at such a place. I googled to find the exact place this is in and I am going to add it to my bucket list 🙂

    1. Yay!! I am really glad you like the sound of it too! 🙂

      I really recommend staying up in the Alpe di siusi, so you don’t have to carry too much while you explore the gorgeous views!

    1. Thanks Sarah!
      Yay for letting more people know about the gorgeousness.

      I had a peek at your blog too. I really like your writing style. I’m rubbish at all the scheduling posts/tweets etc. At least you seem to understand it all.

  3. Holy crap! It’s gorgeous there! Where is that? Italy? You had feedback that you shouldn’t put so many pictures on YOUR blog? 🤔 Gosh, I love your pictures. I say add more!!!!

    1. Really? I have that feedback every time I go to the WP community pool! That is why I’ve tried to put fewer, but larger photos in my last post.

      Yay that you like them. 😀

      And yep, it’s Italy ish. It used to be part of Austria, so the culture is quite German, with a mix of Italian. Everyone is at least trilingual. It is the most amaaaazing area. If you want to know more, google South Tyrol.

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