Reaching the cross on Cima Gran Cir

Climbing the Gran Cir

To climb Cima Gran Cir you have to drive towards Passo Gardena, a very picturesque piece of nature and a beautiful mountain pass in between Val Gardena and Val Badia. We arrived around 9 o'clock in the morning at our parking spot: Rifugio Frara. If there is no parking space left anymore at the rifugio, no worries. The road offers a lot of other possibilities. Each parking space will charge you a cost of 7 euros. On the other side of the road you will find the main starting point of the hike. From Hotel Cir, follow the wide gravel path upwards. If you look up you see a cable car station, walk towards this station. After a 10-15 minute walk towards the station turn right and immediately continue your path left uphill. In total it is a 45 – 60 minute walk to the top from here, this is a steeper part. The route is clearly marked with red dots, so you don't have to worry about going wrong. After about 25 minutes of walking you will come to the first part with a metal cable. The stones can be slippery here, so hold on tight to the cable or use your via ferrata set. We soon noticed that you don't need any special climbing techniques and we covered these 20 meters quite easily. When reaching the second ferrata section, the adrenaline goes wild. This part goes up a bit steeper than the earlier part that I described above. I experienced the climbing up as 'fun' rather than 'scary'. The last ten minutes is just following the red dots till you arrive at the cross.