Alpe di Siusi & Seceda: Easy Dolomites Days for Every Hiker

The best easy walks on Seceda

The Seceda ridgeline to Pieralongia

Step out of the top station, walk a few minutes to the summit cross, and the most photographed ridgeline in the Dolomites unfolds below you: the grassy crest plunging toward the Fermeda towers and the serrated Odle peaks. The classic easy walk follows the broad path along and below the ridge toward the Pieralongia pastures and their landmark rock pinnacles. It is mostly gentle descent on good trails, 1 to 1.5 hours at a relaxed pace, and the views never switch off.

Down to Col Raiser via the Firenze hut

Rather than retracing your steps, continue descending toward the Cisles basin under the Odle walls to Rifugio Firenze (Regensburger Hütte) at 2,040 m — a classic stone-built hut on open pasture, perfect for a long lunch. From there it is a short stroll to the Col Raiser gondola, which takes you down to Santa Cristina, a quick bus ride from Ortisei. The full Seceda-to-Col-Raiser walk is one of the great effort-to-reward ratios in the Alps: around two hours of mostly downhill walking through headline scenery.

Quieter option: Resciesa and the Brogles saddle

From the top of the Resciesa funicular at around 2,170 m, easy trails roll across open mountainside to the Resciesa hut, with head-on views of the Odle group and a fraction of Seceda's crowds. Stronger walkers can continue toward the Brogles saddle and Malga Brogles at 2,047 m, a rustic alm right beneath the Seceda ridge's wild northern side.

The best easy walks on Alpe di Siusi

Alpe di Siusi is less about a single trail and more about wandering: some 56 square kilometres of rolling meadow laced with farm tracks and paths, with Sassolungo's shark-fin profile on one side and the Schlern's table-mountain silhouette on the other.

Compatsch to Saltria meadow loop

The classic introduction: from Compatsch, follow the gentle paths east across the meadows toward Saltria at the foot of Sassolungo, passing hay barns, grazing cattle and a steady procession of huts. Loop back on a parallel track for a half-day walk of two to three hours with barely 200 m of height change. In late June and July the wildflowers here are absurd — whole hillsides of crocus, gentian and alpine roses.

The Puflatsch (Bullaccia) panorama loop

From Compatsch, a loop over the Puflatsch high ground on the plateau's northern rim delivers the best balcony views of the whole area — down into Val Gardena, across to Seceda and the Odle, and south to Sassolungo and the Schlern. It takes around 2.5 to 3 hours at an easy pace, and the Dibaita Puflatsch hut at 1,974 m makes a natural halfway stop. Witches' benches (Hexenbänke) carved along the way nod to the plateau's witch legends.

Huts and mountain restaurants worth stopping at

Hut-hopping is half the point here. The areas around Val Gardena and the Sciliar are malga country: family-run dairy huts where lunch is speck, dumplings, and cheese made metres from your table. A few favourites, all easy to work into the walks above:

• Rifugio Firenze / Regensburger Hütte (2,040 m) — the Seceda area's classic hut, set on the Cisles pastures below the Odle. Ideal lunch stop on the descent to Col Raiser.
• Juac hut (1,905 m) — a friendly alm above Selva on the Puez side of the valley, great on a gentle half-day loop from Selva or Santa Cristina.
• Malga Brogles (2,047 m) — rustic, quiet, and spectacularly placed beneath the north side of the Seceda ridge.
• Dibaita Puflatsch hut (1,974 m) — Kaiserschmarrn with a grandstand view on the Puflatsch loop.
• Rifugio Sasso Piatto (Plattkofelhütte) (2,300 m) — perched on the saddle between Alpe di Siusi and the Sassolungo group; reachable as a longer meadow walk from Saltria.

For more hut inspiration across the region, browse the easiest huts to reach in Trentino-Alto Adige.

Harder options for stronger hikers

When easy days stop feeling like enough, both areas scale up beautifully.

The Sassolungo circuit

From Passo Sella, the circumnavigation of the Sassolungo (Langkofel) group is one of the finest day hikes in the Dolomites: roughly a six-hour loop on rocky but non-technical trails, swinging between moonscape boulder fields and the green shelf above Alpe di Siusi. You pass a string of memorable huts — Rifugio Emilio Comici (2,153 m), Rifugio Sasso Piatto (2,300 m) and Rifugio Vicenza (Langkofelhütte) at 2,253 m, tucked dramatically inside the group's rocky heart. The historic standing-basket cable lift from Passo Sella to Rifugio Toni Demetz at 2,685 m on the Forcella del Sassolungo lets you start high and walk the circuit's inner line.

The Schlern ascent to Rifugio Bolzano

From Compatsch, strong hikers can climb the Schlern (Sciliar) itself via the Touristensteig — a steady ascent of around 1,000 m — to reach Rifugio Bolzano (Schlernhaus) at 2,457 m, one of the oldest mountain huts in the Dolomites, sitting on the summit plateau like a small stone village. Count on a full day of six to seven hours round trip, or stay overnight and continue across the high plateau to Rifugio Alpe di Tires (Tierser-Alpl-Hütte) at 2,440 m, whose red roof under the Denti di Terrarossa is one of the region's iconic sights. That two-day link-up is a perfect first taste of hut-to-hut walking.

When to go

The sweet spot for both areas runs from mid-June to early October. Mid-June to late July brings peak wildflowers on Alpe di Siusi; September delivers stable weather, golden light and thinner crowds; by mid-October larches turn gold but some huts begin closing. The Seceda lifts generally operate from roughly late May into early November, while the Alpe di Siusi cable car pauses in the shoulder seasons (roughly mid-April to mid-May and much of November) — always confirm current windows on seceda.it and seiseralm.it. For a fuller breakdown of conditions across the year, see our month-by-month Dolomites guide.

Photography: timing the light

Seceda's ridgeline is a sunrise and golden-hour subject: the low light rakes across the grass crest and sets the Odle spires glowing, while midday flattens everything. The catch is that the lifts do not run at dawn, so photographers either hike up in the dark, stay at a hut on the mountain, or settle for the last hour before the final descent — still far better than noon. On Alpe di Siusi, early morning is magical in a different way, with mist pooling between the hay barns beneath Sassolungo; overnighting on the plateau (which also unlocks the road exemption) makes that shot easy. A superb alternative for Odle photography without lift-schedule stress is the Adolf Munkel trail on the Val di Funes side, which traverses beneath the Geisler north faces through larch forest and past photogenic alms — an easy-to-moderate walk you can time for evening light.

Where this fits in a bigger Dolomites trip

Think of Alpe di Siusi and Seceda as the perfect opening act or rest-day chapter of a longer trip. A well-balanced week might pair two easy days here with the Tre Cime di Lavaredo loop, a via ferrata or the Schlern crossing, and a night in a high hut. If that overnight lights a fire, the natural next step is a multi-day traverse — our hut-to-hut hiking guide explains how booking and logistics work. And when you are ready to choose where to sleep, start with the huts above: between the Cisles pastures, the Sassolungo circuit and the Schlern plateau, this corner of the Dolomites packs in more welcoming refuges per kilometre than almost anywhere in the Alps.