Catinaccio (Rosengarten)

The best-known peaks

• Catinaccio d'Antermoia3,004 m
• Cima Catinaccio2,981 m
• Croda di Re Laurino2,813 m
• Roda di Vaèl2,806 m
• Torre Winkler2,800 m

Elevations from the map (OpenStreetMap).

What the Catinaccio is like

It is a long, jagged ridge of dolomite. Among the peaks that come close to 3,000 metres, the Dolomites UNESCO Foundation names the Catinaccio d’Antermoia, Cima Scalieret, the Vajolet Towers and the Roda di Vaèl.

For the Foundation it is, with the Sciliar and the Latemar, one of three fossil atolls from the Triassic brought back to light by erosion, and since the 19th century one of the most studied places for Triassic stratigraphy. Since 2009 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site in System 7, 9,302 hectares across the provinces of Trento and Bolzano.

The Sciliar: same park, separate group

The Sciliar (Schlern) is the flat-topped massif beside the Alpe di Siusi, with the Santner and Euringer peaks. Its highest point, according to the Alpe di Siusi tourist board, is the Petz: 2,563 metres.

The sources treat it as a separate group. The UNESCO Foundation counts three groups in the Sciliar-Catinaccio, Latemar system, the tourist boards speak of two massifs, and the SOIUSA classification lists them side by side among the Fassa Dolomites. On this map the Sciliar falls within the Catinaccio frame: that is why the Bolzano Hut and the Sciliar trail are listed here.

The park brings them together. Created on 16 September 1974 as the Sciliar park, the first in South Tyrol, it was extended to the Catinaccio in 2003. It covers 7,288 hectares in the municipalities of Castelrotto, Tires and Fiè allo Sciliar.

Where to start

In Val di Fassa the gateway is Vigo di Fassa, with the cable car to Ciampedìe, a terrace at 2,000 metres. From Pera di Fassa the Vajolet and Pian Pecei chairlifts go up, and the Gardeccia hut is reached by shuttle bus: from Gardeccia and Pian Pecei starts the walk up to the Vajolet huts.

In the Eggental, from Nova Levante (Welschnofen), the König Laurin gondola has run since June 2021 to the Fronza alle Coronelle hut (Kölner Hütte), at 2,337 metres. To the south the Costalunga Pass (Karerpass) separates the Catinaccio from the Latemar, near Lake Carezza; in winter that is where the Carezza ski area is.

Via ferratas, towers and first ascents

According to the Eggental tourist board, the group has 500 kilometres of trails and 7 via ferratas. Grades and gear are covered in the via ferrata guide.

Visit Trentino recalls the first ascents: the Catinaccio d’Antermoia in 1872, by the Englishmen Charles Comyns-Tucker and Thomas Carson with the Fassa guide Luigi Bernard, and the Cima Catinaccio on 31 August 1874, with the Chamonix guide François Dévouassoud. The Vajolet Towers are linked to Georg Winkler and Tita Piaz.

Piaz, a guide from Fassa, built next to the Vajolet hut the hut dedicated to his friend Paul Preuss. Its enlargement, halted by the First World War, was finished in 1925, and the Piaz family still runs it.

Enrosadira and King Laurin

At sunset the walls turn pink and red: this is the enrosadira. In the legend told by Visit Trentino and the Eggental tourist board, Laurin, king of the dwarfs, kidnaps Princess Similde and takes her to his kingdom, where he tends a rose garden. When the knights come to free her, he turns the roses to stone, hidden by day and by night. But he forgets the sunset.

You can watch it from Ciampedìe, from Val di Fassa or from the Alpe di Siusi; places and times are in the sunrise and sunset guide.

Nearby

Places that fall inside the group’s frame but are closer to another group.

• Val San Nicolò
• Lago di Carezza
• Lago di Carezza Loop: the Rainbow Lake beneath the Latemar
• Passo Sella