Le Dolomiti in Agordino

The Dolomites in the Agordino

Overview of the Dolomite Heritage in Agordino, Heart of the Dolomites

The richness of the Agordino territory, from a tourist point of view, is certainly represented primarily by the massive presence of UNESCO Dolomites peaks, so abundant in the Cordevole Valley.

In very few other areas of the Dolomites do guests have the opportunity to find themselves at the foot of so many and varied peaks of the Pale Mountains, considering that 4 of the 9 UNESCO systems are entirely or partially located in our area. For more information on the Dolomite area and its classifications, you can also visit our section “Where the Dolomites are located” (click here).

The Dolomites, one UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site — Detail of the towers of Mount Agner (Pala Group) at dusk, as seen from the San Lucano Valley (Municipality of Taibon Agordino)

In our “The Dolomites” section (click here), we have outlined a brief overview of the immense mountain heritage that guests of the Heart of the Dolomites can admire in the Agordino territory, making a quick comparison between our territory and the entire Dolomite area. In this section of the site, however, we specifically deal with the individual peaks or mountain groups of the Dolomites UNESCO World Natural Heritage present in Agordino. Enjoy!

The Dolomites in the Agordino area, the Heart of the Dolomites — Mount Focobon, Mount Mulaz and Cima Vezzana (Pala Group) from Falcade

The best of the Dolomite Mountains: what to See and where to go in the Heart of the Dolomites — Details of Mount Pelmo, probably the most iconic Dolomitic peak and the first one to have been conquered

The criterion we used for the creation of this section follows the logic of purely “tourist” use, as our mountains are already renowned and adequately covered on many specialized mountaineering and mountain sports websites. Where deemed interesting, we have nevertheless chosen to include some news or facts related to the mountaineering conquest of our Dolomites in the individual entries, but for a detailed description of the peculiarities and mountaineering possibilities of our mountains, we refer readers without hesitation to sites that describe these topics in a much more competent and complete way. In this section of our blog, we limit ourselves here to a schematic description and a geographical, cultural, historical, and tourist contextualization of the Agordino Dolomites, conceived from a tourist perspective to give the guest some interesting insights to better understand what Agordino is and what its natural resources are.

The Dolomite Mountains, the most beautiful mountains of the world — A detail of the impressive northern wall of Mount Civetta as seen from San Tomaso Agordino

The Dolomites, the most beautiful mountains of the world — The peaks of Mount Sella at Passo Pordoi, Municipality of Livinallongo del Col di Lana

The subdivision of the mountain groups that are grouped in this section often arbitrarily follows our personal choices but is based on the two different scientific classifications currently used to subdivide the Dolomites, namely:

– The Unified International Orographic Subdivision of the Alpine System (ISMSA, or SOIUSA in Italian);

– The 9 official systems recognized and protected by the Dolomiti UNESCO Foundation.

Each entry includes the territorial placement of the mountain or mountain group discussed with reference to the two aforementioned classifications.

The Dolomite Alps in Italy: what to see and where to go — Mount Civetta from Canale d’Agordo

The Dolomites in Italy — The peaks of the San Sebastiano Group and Mount Moiazza as seen from the top of Mount Tamer

The map shown below, borrowed from Wikipedia (original link: click here) and modified by us to highlight the territorial location of Agordino, Heart of the Dolomites, clearly shows the Dolomite areas identified by these two classifications: in orange are shown the 9 systems of the Dolomites UNESCO World Natural Heritage (4 of which are present in part or entirely in the Agordino territory), in green the Dolomite area according to SOIUSA.

Both classifications have pros and cons; as for the cons, the Dolomiti UNESCO Foundation classification is precise from a geological point of view but must take into account some fundamental aspects for the granting of the World Natural Heritage recognition, thus excluding mountain areas that are too influenced by the presence of man (from this perspective, it was therefore not possible to grant the Sella, the symbolic mountain of ancient Ladinia, the UNESCO brand as it is surrounded by too many ski lifts). The SOIUSA classification, on the other hand, is often criticized as it is considered too imprecise and inclusive from a geological point of view, including areas (mostly Trentino and South Tyrolean, to be honest) that have little to do with the actual presence of dolomite. By mediating between one and the other classification, we have aimed to provide our readers with a more perfect and exhaustive contextualization of the Dolomites present in Agordino; the entries in this section are continuously updated and we will add new material with a certain constancy aiming for a satisfactory and complete representation of the mountain resources of our area.