Jouf de Pordoi - Passo Pordoi - Pordoijoch
Pass · 2239 m · Dolomites
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Passo Pordoi tops out at 2,239 m between the Sella and Marmolada groups, linking Canazei with Arabba on a road built in 1904 as part of the Great Dolomites Road. The Giro d'Italia has crossed it 39 times since 1940, thirteen as its Cima Coppi, and a memorial at the summit honours Fausto Coppi's rides here. An ossuary for First World War soldiers stands just east of the top.
From Arabba the road climbs through 33 hairpins that tighten as the valley drops away, one of four passes linked by the Sella Ronda circuit around the Sella massif. A single rented hut at the pass, opened by Maria Piaz in the early 1900s, grew into the restaurants and hotels that serve today's traffic once the Great Dolomites Road brought cars and cyclists through. In 1963 Piaz and her son Francesco Dezulian completed a cable car lifting riders 700 m from the pass to the flat rock plateau of Sass Pordoi at 2,950 m in about four minutes, one of the first such lifts built in the Dolomites. Fausto Coppi crossed the summit first five times between 1947 and 1954 and later said that whenever he rode through the area he could breathe beautifully.
What you see
A sheer wall of pale rock rises straight above the pass to Sass Pordoi's flat, glacier-scraped tabletop.
Practical
The Sass Pordoi cable car at the summit runs mid-May to early November, daily 9am to 5pm.
dolomitespart of: Cafés at the foot of the climbgiro ditaliasella ronda