Punta Penia
Peak · 3343 m · Dolomites
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Punta Penia is the summit of the Marmolada, the highest point in the Dolomites at 3,343 metres. Nicknamed the Queen of the Dolomites, the mountain straddles Veneto and Trentino and carries the range's only large glacier on its north face. Unlike most of its neighbors, it is built from grey limestone rather than dolostone.
Paul Grohmann made the first recorded ascent, up the east face, on 28 September 1864, guided by Angelo and Fulgenzio Dimai of Cortina d'Ampezzo. Austrian troops held the summit through 1916 and 1917, digging 12 kilometres of tunnels through the glacier below it, the so-called Ice City, complete with barracks, a chapel and stores. An avalanche buried 270 soldiers there in a single December night in 1916, an episode remembered as White Friday. On 3 July 2022 a serac collapsed just below the neighboring Punta Rocca and swept across the normal route to the summit, killing 11 climbers. Today's summit refuge, the Capanna di Punta Penia, was built in the late 1940s partly from wood and aluminum salvaged from that old Austrian post.
What you see
A large iron cross marks the true summit, with Punta Rocca's cable car station visible to the east and Marmolada's sheer south face falling away to the west.
Practical
There is no cable car to Punta Penia; the nearby Punta Rocca lift stops short of the true summit, which is reached only on foot or by via ferrata.
highest summitglaciervia ferratawwi history