My friends and I decided to have a weekend in the mountains and decided to go to San Martino di Castrozza, a small town in Trentino, famous for its ski runs. With only one person able to ski we decided to do an amazing hike: the ring of Val Venegia.
The path
You can start the hike in two points: Passo Rolle and Pian dei Casoni, and you can walk both clockwise and counterclockwise. I will give you pros and cons of both the paths.
First way
We started from Passo Rolle and went counterclockwise, you have a big uphill road passing trough the ski runs and you get to Baita Segantini, then you have a nice downhill road, until you get to the next two Malghe, and later you start a very long but not so steep climb to go back to Passo Rolle. You can do this path exactly in the opposite way, going clockwise.
My advice is doing the second, because even if you do the same road up and down (obviously!), ending going down is better and the ending in the counterclockwise seems to never end.
Second way
Starting from Pian dei Casoni is very good because you are near Malga Venegia, if you want to start or end with a meal. I would advice doing the clockwise way anyway, so you go towards the mountains and get a more surprising view.
Time and difficulty
This hike is not very tiring nor it’s dangerous, but it’s very long: it is approximately 14km and it takes 4-5 hours to complete.
If you do it in winter you HAVE to start it early (not later than 10am) because the sun goes down at around 5pm and it gets cold easily.
Since it is all covered in snow, only your boots aren’t sufficient, I would adivce attaching either snowshoes or crampons.
The view
You have and amazing view to the Pale di San Martino and you go around Monte Castellazzo, beign able to see it in all its angles. You go into the wood and get some amazing postcard-like landscapes.
