#2 The Brenta Dolomites
Your adventure begins in San Lorenzo in Banale and leads you across Val d'Ambiez, spending the night at the S. Agostini or XII Apostoli mountain lodge. You can also set out from Pinzolo, spending the first night at the XII Apostoli lodge.
The Via delle Normali brings you to the top of 10 peaks, all over 2,900 m in altitude, with a difficulty level that never exceeds III+ .
There are 8 mountain lodges that you can stay at along the way, in addition to the Castiglioni hut on the top of Crozzon di Brenta. By the time you reach the last stage of your itinerary, at the Graffer al Grostè lodge above Madonna di Campiglio, you’ll have covered more than 45 km amid bell towers, walls, and canals, including 15 km of climbing. It may not reach the status of a high-level performance, but it certainly allows you to put your endurance, organisational abilities and motivation to the test. Your mountain experience will take about 60 hours, over seven days of adventure.
Pack your rucksack: you’ll need a harness, a helmet, a descender, locking carabiners, quickdrawers, small-medium cams, nuts, ropes, single rope, a Via Ferrata kit, crampons and a classic ice axe... not to mention lots of enthusiasm for your trip to what’s left of an ancient reef that rose out of a long-ago sea after 200 million years.