Ju de Frara - Grödner Joch - Passo Gardena
Pass · 2121 m · Dolomites
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Passo Gardena crests at 2,121 m between Val Gardena and Val Badia, framed by the Sella group to the south and the Cir peaks to the north. A driveway over the pass dates to 1915, built during the First World War, and the road forms one leg of the Sella Ronda loop with Pordoi, Sella and Campolongo. The Giro d'Italia has climbed it 16 times.
That wartime road ran from a narrow-gauge railway at Bolzano, through Val Gardena to Plan, then by cable car over the pass to Corvara, and on toward the fighting at Campolongo, Sella and Pordoi. A paved road did not follow until 1960, decades after that first crossing opened to wheels. The pass carries three names for the three languages spoken in these valleys: Passo Gardena in Italian, Grödner Joch in German, and Ju de Frara or Jëuf de Frea in the two Ladin dialects of Gardena and Badia. It returned to the Giro d'Italia route into Ortisei in 2017, when Tejay van Garderen won the stage while Tom Dumoulin defended the pink jersey he carried all the way to Rome that year.
What you see
The road's upper half switchbacks through nineteen hairpin bends, with weathered stone fortifications and trench lines from the First World War still visible on the slopes above.
Practical
The Sellaronda Bike Day closes Gardena and the other three Sella Ronda passes to motor traffic twice a year, in early June and mid-September, leaving the roads to cyclists from 8:30 am to 4 pm.
part of: Cafés at the foot of the climbsella rondawwi history