Hut-to-hut on the Alta Via 1, Dolomites

The Alta Via 1 runs the length of the Dolomites, some 120 kilometres from the milky green of Lago di Braies south towards Belluno, and it is the model against which other hut-to-hut walks are measured. There is no glacier and no need for technical skill, which is why it opens the high Dolomites to ordinary fit walkers. You carry a daypack and little else: bed and board wait each evening at a rifugio, so the weight on your shoulders is water, a shell and a sleeping liner rather than a tent and a week of food. The walking is generous with its rewards. The route threads beneath the sheer walls and pale towers that make these mountains look sculpted rather than eroded — Lagazuoi with its First World War tunnels bored through the rock, the neat spires of the Cinque Torri, the reflection of Croda da Lago in its still tarn. Days run six to eight hours over passes and scree, with a few exposed sections and the odd cabled step, but nothing that asks for a rope or a guide. It is serious walking made unusually accessible. Evenings are half the point. You arrive at a rifugio, peel off your boots, and eat barley soup and polenta at a long table with walkers from a dozen countries, the alpenglow burning the peaks pink through the window. Then an early night in a bunk, and the same simple rhythm again at dawn. The season is short — the huts open from late June to late September, no longer. Book them months ahead, because the good ones fill, and walk it south to north or north to south as the beds allow. A week on the Alta Via 1 is, for many, the walk that turns a holidaymaker into someone who goes to the mountains.