Funivia Marmolada - Punta Rocca

The Marmolada cable car is one of the most dramatic lift journeys in the Alps. Rising from Malga Ciapela at 1,450 metres to Punta Rocca at 3,265 metres in two stages, covering 7,400 metres of cable across glacier and rock face, it delivers passengers to a vantage point above the largest glacier in the Dolomites and the highest summit in the entire range.

The Marmolada — “Queen of the Dolomites” — is at 3,343 metres (Punta Penia, the true summit, accessible only by mountaineering) the undisputed monarch of this UNESCO World Heritage landscape. The glacier that sweeps north and west from the summit is the Dolomites’ only significant permanent ice body, and it supports the only summer skiing in this territory: a short but genuine glacier ski area operating from June through August, unique in the region and increasingly precious as climate change reduces its extent year by year.

From Punta Rocca, the summit panorama encompasses the entire Dolomites chain: from Cortina’s Tofana to the Brenta group in the west, from the Pale di San Martino to the Carniche. On the clearest days the view extends to the Austrian Alps across the border. The museum of the Great War inside the glacier is a remarkable historical site: during 1915-1918, Austrian and Italian troops fought and lived in tunnels carved directly into the ice of the Marmolada glacier, one of the most extraordinary episodes of mountain warfare in history.

Winter skiing at the Marmolada is characterised by excellent snow quality guaranteed by altitude, a limited but well-planned piste network, and an atmosphere of genuine mountain grandeur that contrasts sharply with the more developed and crowded resorts of the Dolomiti Superski circuit.