Pale di San Martino

The best-known peaks

• Cimon della Pala3,184 m
• Cima della Vezzana3,192 m
• Pala di San Martino2,982 m
• Sass Maòr2,812 m
• Cima del Focobon3,054 m

Elevations from the map (OpenStreetMap).

What the group is like

The Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino park explains that the Cimon della Pala, the Mulaz, the Vezzana and all the Pale are made of Sciliar Dolomite, a pale, massive rock that here reaches a thickness of nearly a thousand metres. The San Martino tourist board recalls that these mountains were coral atolls in the Triassic sea, and that they change colour with the light: pale in the sun, grey after a storm, pink at dawn and sunset.

Visit Trentino lists the group’s three landscapes: pointed peaks such as the Cimon della Pala, sheer walls such as that of the Sass Maor, and the barren plateau. Dino Buzzati, it adds, compared these mountains to clouds, dreams and visions.

Where to start

From San Martino di Castrozza the Colverde gondola takes you to the foot of the Pale; the Rosetta cable car climbs into the heart of the plateau, from where you can reach the Pedrotti hut at the Rosetta.

From the Rolle Pass you can walk to the Baita Segantini and into Val Venegia, below the Cimon della Pala: the loop linking the two also suits families. From Fiera di Primiero you enter Val Canali, where Villa Welsperg, the park’s headquarters and visitor centre, stands at the mouth of the valley. The Mulaz hut can also be reached from the Valles Pass and from Falcade, in the Belluno area.

Palaronda and via ferratas

The Dolomiti Palaronda Trek, offered by the San Martino tourist board, is a three- to eight-day tour with nights in the group’s huts, between 1,800 and 2,500 metres: Rosetta, Pradidali, Mulaz, Velo della Madonna and Treviso. There are versions without protected sections and versions with via ferratas. How to plan the stages is explained in the hut-to-hut guide.

The tour’s via ferratas are the Bolver Lugli on the Cimon della Pala, up to the Fiamme Gialle bivouac at 3,005 metres, the Nico Gusela, the Velo, the Porton and the Vecia; from the Travignolo Pass you can climb Cima della Vezzana. For beginners the board recommends mountain guides; gear and grades are in the via ferrata guide.

First ascents

Visit Trentino recalls two dates. In 1875 the Englishman Charles Comyns-Tucker climbed the Sass Maor with H. A. Beachcroft, the guide François Dévouassoud and the local guide Della Santa. In 1878 Tucker and Douglas Freshfield made the first ascent of Cima della Vezzana, the highest in the group.

Park and UNESCO World Heritage

The Pale form the eastern part of the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino Nature Park, created by the Province of Trento with provincial law 18 of 1988: 19,726 hectares, with the Paneveggio forest to the west.

Since 26 June 2009 they have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site in System 3, Pale di San Martino, San Lucano, Dolomiti Bellunesi, Vette Feltrine: 31,666 hectares across the provinces of Trento and Belluno, the second-largest system. In German the group is called Palagruppe.