The Dolomites, Above the Valley

The Dolomites reward height and early hours. The chalet sits above the tree line, which means the valley's day-trip traffic never reaches you and the light arrives twenty minutes before it reaches the village below.

A guide walks with you each morning — the same guide for all five days, so by the third he knows your pace and stops correcting for it. He also knows which rifugio serves a real lunch at noon and which one exists for the photograph, a distinction no map makes.