Parco naturale Paneveggio - Pale di San Martino
Nature reserve · Dolomites
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Almost forty percent of this park is integral reserve, where nothing but research and walking on foot is allowed; another half permits farming, and only a tenth is open to much else. Across nearly 20,000 hectares and seven municipalities the ground climbs from 1,100 m in the valleys to the 3,192 m Vezzana.
Red deer rut through these valleys every autumn, the males' bellowing calls, the bramito, carrying for miles across the forest. Above the tree line, the Altopiano delle Pale opens into a broad, almost lunar plateau between 2,500 and 2,700 m, scattered with edelweiss, gentians and saxifrage. At its centre the Pale di San Martino massif, capped by the 3,192 m Vezzana, formed as coral reefs in a tropical sea more than 300 million years ago before folding upward into today's Dolomites. The park itself was established in 1967 and enlarged twenty years later, its territory taking in the Paneveggio forest, the massif and the eastern edge of the Lagorai range.
What you see
Above Passo Rolle, the rock pyramid of Cimon della Pala fills the skyline, long ranked among the most photographed views in the Alps.
Practical
Rangers lead guided evening walks into the park during the rut, from late September to early October, to hear the bramito close up.
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