Ski the Italian Dolomites on a hut-to-hut mountain safari

Rifugio Lagazuoi crowns the mountain. The hut’s dark timber frame stands out against the pale rock and white snow that had drifted down overnight. This isn’t just any mountain. Here in the Dolomites are echoes of endurance; of the men who fought here in 1915, during the ‘White War’ between Italy and Austria-Hungary, when up to 12 metres of snow fell, and far harsher conditions prevailed. Throughout that winter, soldiers traversed breakneck ridges, tunnelling into them to detonate explosives, reshaping the mountain — a high-altitude frontline.

It’s early January and exceptionally cold, intensified by the bone-chilling history. I double up my thermals before skiing into the Hidden Valley which descends from the hut, down the northwest side of 2,835m Lagazuoi peak. “You’re standing where people lived, fought and died,” says Tim Hudson, a silver-haired Yorkshireman who co-founded specialist ski company Inspired Italy. We’ve paused on the side of the slope, not in remembrance or ritual, but simply to listen. Tim wants us to notice the silence. This is vast, empty terrain.

I’m on a six-day hut-to-hut ski safari through the Dolomites, in northeast Italy. But this is not a ski touring trip where you’d need special equipment and off-piste expertise; it’s an entirely piste-accessed journey across the lift-accessible Dolomiti Superski area, overnighting in a network of rifugi — wood-built mountain huts. Our 22-litre backpacks hold little more than spare layers and nightwear. With rifugi providing toiletries and bedding, we’re free to ski with the lightest of baggage. Facilities vary from hut to hut, some offering basic shared rooms, others equipped more like a mountain hotel. But all are staffed throughout the ski season, and you can count on a hot shower, breakfast and an evening meal.

Our week had begun in the hamlet of Bulla, above the central Val Gardena village of Ortisei in the heart of the Dolomites. Dinner on the first night, at Mea Via Slow Farm Hotel, had brought a feast of roast pork with buckwheat and cauliflower cream, accompanied by südtiroler blauburgunder, a pinot noir from just down the valley. Once the table was cleared, Tim had spread out a map of the Dolomiti Superski area that looked as complex as the London Underground and covered roughly three times its distance: 1,200km of pisted runs. “Don’t come to the Dolomites with a resort mentality,” he’d said, noting the immense terrain. “You’ll miss so much.”

Home comforts

After a day’s warm-up skiing on the nearby slopes above Val Gardena, a helicopter carried us over the Alpe di Siusi, revealing watersheds, valleys and old borders between Austria and Italy. Within two days, we had crossed three provinces and two regions, bringing a shifting mix of German, Italian and Ladin, a language with roots thought to predate both the others in the area.

From the high mountain pass of Passo San Pellegrino, which bridges Italy’s Trentino and Veneto regions, we skied down into the Dolomites hamlet of Falcade. Here we met Gianluca — a driver and head of the local civil defence — who transferred us 20 minutes by road to Alleghe, a village beneath the Civetta ski area. As we approached, Gianluca slowed to point out Lake Alleghe, formed 250 years ago by a landslide that buried seven local villages. On certain days, he told us, you can still hear church bells from beneath the water.

I enjoy long, quiet, scenic runs in the sunshine beneath Civetta, whose name means ‘little owl’. This isolated mountain rises sheer above the treeline, a block of pale grey and ochre dolomite rock. Off to the north, reached by ski lifts, lies Rifugio Lagazuoi. At 2,752 metres, it’s the highest rifugio in the Dolomites accessible on skis. Climbing the 30 steps to the entrance, I breathe hard in the thin air at this altitude. Inside, the pine-clad bar is stacked with espresso cups and wine glasses. I order a cioccolata calda that’s so thick and velvety it’s more like custard than a hot chocolate. Dinner is tagliatelle with chunky venison ragù, followed by kaiserschmarrn — shredded Tyrolean pancakes dusted with icing sugar. I eat as clouds swallow the mountains outside.

By morning, the terrace doors open onto peak after peak, catching the first light. Over breakfast, we’re given a warm welcome from Guido Pompanin, whose father built the rifugio in the early 1960s. Tall and lightly weathered, with bright blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, Guido has been working here for 48 years.

"My father used to say our family were five people against the Dolomites,” he says. “Five pioneers who hauled materials up by foot, built a cable car and believed the valleys could one day be connected. The idea was considered eccentric at the time.” Guido tells us his father, who was “a good climber”, started coming here with an old Austrian soldier. Struck by the panorama, in 1960 he decided to leave his job in Cortina and build a life here. By 1963, the cable car was taking shape, a first piste was being planned and, with it, a bigger idea: “They had in their mind to connect the valleys.”

Over subsequent years, the beginning of what is now Dolomiti Superski — one of the world’s largest ski areas — began to take shape. Today it takes in 12 distinct ski resorts, but it began with small developments like Guido’s. The family were initially granted permission for just one piste. “There were no snow groomers,” he says. “The piste was shaped by people skiing over the snow again and again.”

Leaving Guido’s domain, we ski back down into the Hidden Valley, passing two white alpacas grazing outside the Rifugio Scotoni. At the valley floor, we’re met by a horse-drawn sleigh whose trailing rope allows skiers to be pulled across the flat stretch towards the hamlet of Armentarola. I hop inside and rest my legs, as the snow starts to fall.

After a creamy Bombardino, a hot egg liqueur spiked with brandy and topped with cream, in Armentarola, we ski into the Alta Badia region, in the heart of the Dolomites, to take a series of lifts up towards Marmolada. Known as the ‘Queen of the Dolomites’, this peak is formed of limestone rather than dolomitic rock. “Like a slice of brown bread between two slices of white,” says Tim noting the geological colour distinction. The mountain’s glacier comes into view as the cable car climbs above the surrounding ridgelines — a vast sweep of white running down from the summit of Punta Rocca, the valleys below lost in cloud.

At the platform, Tim uses the skyline to retrace where we’ve skied this week. In the foreground is our first rifugio, Cima Uomo, then the ‘rounded mass’ of Tofana peak with the white ridge of Lagazuoi beneath it. To the north, clouds drift across the Badia Valley. And just visible to the left are the slopes of Alpe di Siusi, where we finished our first day’s skiing.

Unique peaks

But there’s plenty of piste left. From here, we descend La Bellunese, the longest run in the Dolomites at 12km, taking in a slice of glacier at the top. It’s firm and fast, and my speed builds quickly. The following morning, we break a ski safari’s golden rule and do it again, Tim’s way; very first thing, so it’s quiet and we have the glacier to ourselves.

From Marmolada, we join the Sella Ronda, a circuit of pistes around the Sella massif, skiing it clockwise to reach our final rifugio, Ütia Col Pradat at 2,038m. A warming fire smoulders outside, and the air is scented with smoking wood. Draped in sheepskins, we sit around the flames as the Sella turns from chalk to rose to deepening blue. Inside, pine ceilings and a wine cellar set into brick arches are a refined counterpoint to the simplicity of Rifugio Lagazuoi. Dinner is clear broth with a single dumpling, followed by venison with citrus and fennel, then by pasta with burrata.

The final morning dawns clear, with blue skies and soft clouds catching on mountain ridges. We move back toward Val Gardena and ski Saslong, a slope favoured by the men’s World Cup downhill contests. It’s broad and rolling, with terrain that compresses and releases, shifting our speeds like a fairground ride. Back in Bulla, we watch the sun drop below the horizon. The rock pales, then turns the distinctive rosy pink and deep, burning red of a textbook Dolomites sunset. One face appears to catch fire, while another falls into shadow.

“It still amazes me that this landscape was once under the sea,” says Tim. The Dolomites, a range formed millions of years ago in a continental collision that uprooted a coral reef between Africa and Europe, comprises a unique geology that reflects more light than regular limestone. Tim worries about coming ecological transformations; that climate change will mean the glacier and surrounding peaks may not be skiable within 10 years. Of the fewer than 20 rifugi currently open to host skiers overnight, Inspired Italy uses 13. Two less than last year, thanks to closures.

“You’re skiing in the scenery, not on it,” his partner, Louise Anderton had told me before I travelled. And by the end of the week, I see she’s right. I feel I have moved through something, valley to valley, hut to hut — through shifts in language and rock type and culture — and the map that once looked impossibly complex has become familiar.