This is the page for anyone who has already picked the Brenta and now has to decide where to put the suitcase. The group has two sides that are not connected by car except by a long detour round the outside, and your base shapes everything else: which trails you reach in half an hour, which lake you see in the morning, which lift takes you up.
To the west, in Val Rendena, are Madonna di Campiglio and Pinzolo. Campiglio is the fashionable side, with the big ski area and the Grostè gondola that lifts you to 2,442 metres with no effort, and it is the base for the Vallesinella waterfalls, for the huts at the heart of the group and for the via delle Bocchette. Pinzolo, a little further down the valley, is the simpler and usually cheaper alternative, on the same road.
To the east sit Molveno, with its lake at the foot of the walls and its beaches, and Andalo on the Paganella plateau: they are the right fit for families, with gentle slopes, the Pradel gondola above the lake and the Paganella lifts that face the Brenta head on. To the north, in Val di Non, Lake Tovel sits in a basin of its own, with car access regulated in high season and shuttles from the lower Val di Tovel: you get there for the day, you do not sleep beside it.
The whole group lies inside the Adamello Brenta Nature Park, the largest protected area in Trentino, home to the brown bear population reintroduced with the Life Ursus project.
If you are still deciding whether to come at all, the overview is in the guide to the Brenta Dolomites; the peaks, altitudes, huts and Bocchette of the massif are on the mountain group page.
When it is worth coming to Brenta Dolomites, month by month: When to Go to the Dolomites: A Month-by-Month Guide.
