Forcella Giau is one of the top places I saw during our trip in Dolomites. Like Piz Ciampei one or two days before I hiked this one alone at sunrise while everybody was still sleeping in the van. The night was a mixed between rain storms and thunderstoms and as often in that case dawn was quiet and peaceful.
The dog and I didn’t meet anybody until our way back… what a strange feeling in the busy – but always amazing – Dolomites.
The hike starts at Passo Giau in front of the restaurant, on the other side of the road. The path goes gently through cow fields and continue with a small ascent until Forcella de Col Piombin. There is the first nice view: on one side you can see the the passo Giau and it’s iconic peak (first picture) and on the other side a green valley and the big wall that dominate the landscape.
The path continue through this valley (see last picture). First with a small descent and then a more plat path. Once you arrive under the “wall” starts the real ascent until Forcella Giau. It is steep and slippery (thanks to the amount of rain we experienced the night before) but after something like 20 minutes you arrive at the pass where the landscape becomes really breathtaking.
About the time to get there : I think the whole hike can be done in about an hour but as always when I’m hiking alone in the morning I stop many times to take pictures and try different angles so I couldn’t say exactly. It could be a little bit less or more. But based on the time it took me to go back one hour seems a good average.
Once on Forcella Giau everything is possible. Here starts a huge plateau with so many hiking or camping possibilites than the first think I though was “Next time in the Dolomites when both kids will be ok with hiking we will come to stay overnight here”.
I didn’t want to go back very late at the van as we had decided to do a long hike the rest of the day so I simply hiked a little bit off trails around the Pass to enjoy the landscape and take some pictures.
As you can see on the pictures I was lucky with the light which was really golden and filtered by big clouds. The perfect weather for my photography taste!
If you plan to visit the Dolomites and ask about a wild place to visit far from the “crowds” I would definitly tell you to go there and enjoy the plateau for the day. There is no difficulties here and it can be done by young -trained – kids around 5 without any doubt.
Information
- Departure : Passo Giau
- Altitudes : 2236m (passo Giau), 2360m (forcella Giau)
- Elevation gain : 124m
- Duration : 1h
- Date : august 2019
- Mountain range : Dolomites
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Please don’t suggest in your blog post that it’s allowed to camp in the Dolomites – it’s not allowed to pitch tents!
There is a difference between “camping” and just staying one night arriving late and leaving early with just a tent (in French we call this “bivouac”, I think it works also in English). This kind of thing is allowed in many places even in Dolomites (it is allowed for exemple in Tre Cime area – it is written on the news signs built recently).
Pitching tents isn’t allowed, not only in South Tyrol but anywhere in Italy. You can find this info everywhere, especially at the tourist info. A bivac is only for emergency situations for climbers/hikers if they aren’t able to finish their tour or if they are trapped in bad weather.