On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BigJimSlade
Seceda.
I have a Flickr extension for Chrome that brings up pictures with each new window or tab. A few years ago I kept seeing Tre Cime (google it then click on “Images”), which inspired our first trip to the Dolomites. This time, I kept seeing Seceda. So that was the centerpiece for this trip, plus Val Gardena offers so much, so it was the place to go!
After taking a gondola from Santa Cristina (we took the bus a few miles up the valley from where we stayed in Ortisei to get there), we started to climb up the rest of the way, up an enormous, grassy hillside full of ski lifts and incredible views. This is looking back across the valley at Sassolungo (left half of mountain) and Sassopiatto (right half of mountain).
We took one of the slightly cheaper gondolas and walked up the last 1,000 or so vertical feet.
And looking straight down, you find the flowers.
This is looking back down on Resciesa ridge, where we hiked on the first day.
And far below these picnickers you can see the refugio we had lunch at on the first day. We are now on top of the mountains that were then covered in clouds.
This is what we came for – Seceda!
This is turning around and looking back at what we’ve walked across. It’s a little bit like a higher mirror of Resciesa ridge.
My favorite subjects – my wife and the Dolomites! In the background is Passo Sella with the Sella group on the right and Sassolungo on the left.
Another view of Seceda.
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Chris T.
It’s hard to believe those rocks are 250M years old. They’re so sharp and knobbly, like the Tetons, which are less than 10 millions years old.
JPL
The entire series of photos have been amazing. What a glorious trip.
Rusty
Wondrous!
J.
Great photos of gorgeous scenery. Thanks for sharing!
Spanky
For a small part of the world, it sure looks big.
WaterGirl
That last photo, wow!
Grumpy Old Railroader
Just amazing
susanna
A terrific collection of photos displaying the geometrically-angled Dolomites. And they are majestic while inducing a bit of dizziness when looking over an edge.
Thanks – looked forward to them each time and was richly rewarded.
BigJimSlade
Thanks for the nice comments everyone!
eclare
Absolutely gorgeous!
StringOnAStick
@Chris T.: Massive uplift will do that, for sure. The Alps are and have been tectonically active, so you get uplift and sharp relief as the rocks are fractured, tilted and eroded from being pushed upward.
We were in the next valley over from Big Jim’s photos, but in early fall. Frost was nipping the pots of geraniums (perlagoniums for the gardeners here) in the higher little towns, but the valleys were filled with wild fall crocus, the kind that push up leaves in the spring, then die back, only to push their flowering stalks to the surface in the fall; so pretty.
Thanks for the images, you have much better photos than we took since we didn’t have a digital camera then. It is so nice to see this gorgeous area again!
BigJimSlade
@StringOnAStick: Thanks, I got the camera before going to Kauai for the first time (2015), so I really wanted a decent camera and to take a helicopter tour around the island and see the Na Pali coast – I’ll have to set up an OTR submission for that!
I practiced using the camera on our local hikes in the Santa Monica mountains, which aren’t as “epic” as the Dolomites. So flowers were the best subjects for me to practice on. That’s how I got started on flower pictures :-)
Gary K
@Chris T.: You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Teton Mountains are quite young, yes, but the rock within them was formed 2.7 billion years ago.