Sas de Pordoi
Peak · 2950 m · Dolomites
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Sas de Pordoi rises 2,950 m directly above Passo Pordoi, one of the southern ramparts of the Sella group's rock fortress. A cable car built in 1963, on the initiative of Maria Piaz, lifts riders from the pass to the summit plateau in four minutes, where Rifugio Maria's terrace looks out to the Rosengarten, Sassolungo and, on clear days, the Ötztal and Zillertal peaks.
From the summit plateau, a waymarked path continues to Piz Boe, and because the cable car strips out most of the 700 metres of ascent, Piz Boe is often called the most accessible three-thousand-metre summit in the Dolomites. The rock underfoot predates the mountains themselves: the Dolomites formed on the floor of an ancient sea roughly 300 million years ago, and fossils and layered strata are visible in the plateau's exposed rock. Passo Pordoi lay on the Dolomites front during the First World War, and the cable car's valley station now holds a museum of more than 3,000 objects from the fighting. The mountain is also one of six peaks linked by the Alta Via 2, the long-distance trekking route that runs the length of the Dolomites.
What you see
The summit plateau is bare, pale rock scoured into a cratered, almost lunar surface, ringed by the sheer walls of the Sella massif.
Practical
The cableway runs about nine months of the year. The summit trail onward is rated T2, moderate mountain hiking, and the route on to Piz Boe still crosses sections secured with fixed ropes.
viewpointcable car accessdolomites geology