Parco Nazionale delle Incisioni Rupestri d and Marmolada
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
619 km
Riding-time estimate
13 h 26
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Capo di Ponte it runs 619 km to Capo di Ponte; allow about 13 h 26 of riding. It goes by way of Molina di Ledro, Dolomiti di Brenta, Rio delle Foglie and Marmolada. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Great Dolomites Road
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 81 km this is Great Dolomites Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Rider note
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chapter facts
Length
81 km
Named road
Great Dolomites Road
Pass
Passo Costalunga
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Parco Nazionale delle Incisioni Rupestri d
Valcamonica is a long, narrow valley that runs north from Lake Iseo into the Alps, and for about eight thousand years people have been carving pictures on its rocks. The Camuni, an Iron Age people, left the most, but the earliest carvings belong to hunters of the end of the ice age, and the latest belong to medieval travellers. In all, there are hundreds of thousands of figures, scratched or pecked into smooth glacial sandstone: deer, warriors, ploughmen, huts, maps, dancers and strange sun-like symbols. In 1979 it became the first site in Italy to be placed on the World Heritage list.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Parco Nazionale delle Incisioni Rupestri d is where the day begins. Next is Molina di Ledro.
2. Molina di Ledro
In 1929, when the level of Lake Ledro was lowered to feed a hydroelectric plant, thousands of wooden posts emerged from the mud near Molina di Ledro. They were the remains of a Bronze Age pile-dwelling village, inhabited some four thousand years ago, and the finds included pottery, tools, weapons, and a canoe. Molina di Ledro is part of the UNESCO-listed Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, and the Museo delle Palafitte, on the lake shore, displays the finds alongside reconstructed huts on stilts.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Molina di Ledro comes up about 93 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dolomiti di Brenta.
3. Dolomiti di Brenta
The Brenta Dolomites stand apart from the rest of the Dolomites, a separate range west of the Adige valley, and they look as if they were carved by someone with a taste for drama: sheer walls, needle-sharp spires and long ledges of pale limestone glowing pink at dawn and dusk. The range is part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site, listed in 2009, and it is protected within the Adamello Brenta Nature Park, home to brown bears, which were reintroduced here from Slovenia around the turn of the millennium.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 153 km into the recorded legs you reach Dolomiti di Brenta. Next is Rio delle Foglie.
4. Rio delle Foglie
Rio delle Foglie is the Italian name for the Bletterbach, a gorge that cuts deep into the plateau above the Adige valley, south of Bolzano, near the villages of Aldino and Redagno. It is part of the Dolomites World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2009, and it is one of the best places in the Alps to read the history of the Earth in rock. The stream has carved down through hundreds of metres of layers, from volcanic porphyry at the bottom through red sandstones to the white dolomite of the Corno Bianco at the top, spanning tens of millions of years.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rio delle Foglie, about halfway. Next is Marmolada.
5. Marmolada
The Queen of the Dolomites, they call her, and the Marmolada earns the title: at 3,343 metres, Punta Penia is the highest summit of the range, and its northern flank carries the largest glacier in the Dolomites, while the south face drops away as a sheer wall of pale limestone. That glacier is shrinking fast, and in July 2022 a large section of it collapsed, killing eleven climbers, a tragedy that brought the effects of climate change home to everyone who loves these mountains.