Croda Rossa di Sesto - Sextener Rotwand
Peak · 2965 m · Dolomites
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Red rock gives the mountain both of its names, Rotwand in German and Croda Rossa in Italian. Trenches, gun emplacements and command posts still stand near the summit, left by the Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops who fought over these slopes from 1915 to 1918 and kept now as an open-air museum.
The mountain was first climbed on 20 July 1878 by the South Tyrolean guide Michel Innerkofler, one of the Dolomites' early climbing pioneers. Decades later it became a battlefield: Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops fought over its slopes throughout the First World War's high-altitude 'White War', from 1915 to 1918. Their trenches, gun emplacements and command posts survive near the summit, preserved today as an open-air museum. Information boards along the route explain how soldiers built shelters and gun positions from the bare rock and survived here through Alpine winters for the length of the war.
What you see
The mountain's rock face takes on a reddish tone that gives it both its German name, Rotwand ('red wall'), and its Italian one, Croda Rossa ('red ridge').
Practical
The WWI open-air museum starts near the Rudi hut, by the cable car's upper station around 2,000 m, and a roughly 45-minute walk on trail No. 100 leads on to the Anderter hut.
wwi historyopen air museumsexten sundialdolomites peak