This is post number five in the series of blog posts sharing images from a week long photography trip to the Dolomites in September 2019, sharing images taken from Piz Boé.

Piz Boé is part of the Sella group, a plateau shaped massif in the Dolomites, known as being one of the most easily accessible 3000m summits.  The cable car, from Passo Pordoi, gets you to about 2900m with a relatively short (3km, ~1hr), straight forward walk to the summit (around 3150m).  Rifugio Capanna Fassa is situated on the summit, enabling an overnight stay as well as the opportunity to get a piece of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee (which, at >3000m, is quite something!).  It’s not a location that you typically hear about when researching photography locations in the Dolomites and so, always looking to try and find lesser shot views, we booked a night in the rifugio and made our way up one afternoon.

From the summit there were spectacular views in most directions including of Marmolada – the highest point in the Dolomites.  The only problem, being at 3000m, was the cloud – as we climbed up, the afternoon cloud came in (as it had done all week) to shroud the summit and limit the views.  Not to be perturbed, however, we hung around until after sunset, catching any opportunities as the breaks in the cloud came and went.

This is Gran Vernal during one of those brief windows through the cloud.

We didn’t get much luck through to sunset, but the next morning was a different story, being crisp and clear allowing us to shoot in all directions.

Here are a couple of images looking to the south, showing Marmolada under the pastel twilight sky…

Looking north east, revealed a beautiful view with Cima Dieci (fore, left) in front of a sea of peaks stretching all the way back to (what I think is) Großglockner, the highest mountain in Austria (back, right).

And back looking south, just west of Marmolda is Monte Colac in the foreground stretching back to Cima d’Asta in the background…

And then layers of interlocking mountains and hillsides in the cool blues of twilight…

As the sun came up, the valley below us started to catch the direct light, giving a spectacular view, with the familiar shape of Monte Pelmo…

And the slightly wider view…

And wider still showing the full, rugged landscape below…

There were good views looking in the other direction too.  First up, looking over towards the cable car station as the sun illuminated the mountains beyond.

And then a closer view of those distant mountains, with the low cloud of a temperature inversion in the valleys below…

It was barely 45 minutes after sunrise before the light became too harsh compared to what we’d just been shooting with, so we headed inside for some breakfast before making our way down to the cable car.  Piz Boé was definitely worth the trip – fantastic, lesser known views less than 2 minutes from the front door of the rifugio. Perfect.

Next up, Sella Pass.