Rifugio Boè

Rifugio Boè is an alpine hut in Sella & Marmolada. It sits at 2873 m. Typical season: Jun 20-Sep 20. Reported capacity: 69 beds.

Hut to hut on foot

Nearest staffed huts on walking trails from Rifugio Boè: Rifugio Forcella Pordoi (~54 min), Rifugio Maria (Sass Pordoi) (~1 h 18 min), Rifugio Capanna Piz Fassa (~1 h 21 min).

Estimated times for an average hiker, based on distance and elevation.

Staying at Rifugio Boè

A stone house at 2,873 m in the Sella’s lunar heart: one hour from the cable car, and a different planet once it closes.

The Sella plateau is the strangest landscape in the Dolomites, a grey stone desert above 2,800 m, and Boè is the house in the middle of it. First built in the late 1800s and run by the Vaia family since 1990, it reopened in 2021 after a full rebuild: warm larch interiors inside a shell that shrugs off weather which can turn wintry in any month. Day visitors pour across from the Sass Pordoi cable car for lunch; overnight guests get the plateau’s eerie silence, and the highest sunset dinner table on Alta Via 2.

Staying the night

Around 70 beds in small rooms and four-plus-bed dorms, all crisp post-renovation: good mattresses, charging points at the beds, hot water, even Wi-Fi. It is still 2,873 m, so pack for cold nights and treat the altitude with respect if you slept in the valley the night before. Card payments accepted, which is not a given up here.

The food

Trentino mountain kitchen with the volume turned up at midday (the cable-car crowd) and the calm turned up at dinner. Barley soup, canederli and a serious grappa shelf; vegetarians manage fine.

Booking reality

Email is the main channel and the hut also sits on the CAI online booking portal; CAI membership cuts the bed price at club huts like this one. July–August weekends fill well ahead on the strength of Alta Via 2 and Piz Boè traffic; midweek and September are much softer. Open roughly June 20 to late September.

Getting there

Easiest: Sass Pordoi cable car from Passo Pordoi, then ~1 h across the plateau on trail 627. On foot from Corvara via the Vallon side it is a solid half-day. The Sella loop and AV2 both pass the door, and the descent into Val de Mesdì next door is the wildest scree run in the range.

Good to know

• Piz Boè (3,152 m), the Sella’s highest point, stands ~45 min above the hut; doing it at sunrise before the cable cars start is the whole reason to sleep here.
• Weather on the plateau is serious: snow is possible in August, and navigation in fog is disorienting on the featureless stone.
• Dogs are welcome, rare at this altitude.