Rifugio Contrin

Rifugio Contrin is an alpine hut in Sella & Marmolada. It sits at 2016 m. Typical season: Jun 01 - Sep 30. Reported capacity: 112 beds.

Hut to hut on foot

Nearest staffed huts on walking trails from Rifugio Contrin: Rifugio Passo San Nicolò (~1 h 33 min), Baita alle Cascate (~2 h 30 min), Rifugio Tobià del Giagher (~2 h 54 min).

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

Staying at Rifugio Contrin

The Alpini’s mountain house under the Marmolada: Great War history, 90 beds, a chapel, and goulash worth the climb.

Contrin fills the head of its own valley beneath the west walls of the Marmolada, the highest massif in the Dolomites. Built by the Nuremberg section of the German-Austrian Alpine Club in the 1890s, burned in the first autumn of the Great War, rebuilt by Italy’s Alpini in the 1920s; it is still owned by the National Alpini Association today. The Debertol family has run it since 1974, and the place wears its history lightly: flags, a stone chapel, and a terrace full of hikers eating ravioli with game ragù.

Staying the night

Genuinely two huts in one. Six renovated rooms with sheets, duvets, towels and private bathrooms with hot showers, alongside classic Alpini-scale dormitories: wooden bunk rooms of 6 to 15 places across three floors, showers on each, for around 80 more. Couples and families take the rooms; trekking groups take the dorms; everyone shares the same dining room.

The food

One of the better kitchens on the Marmolada circuit: canederli, tagliatelle with venison ragù, polenta with goulash, and homemade desserts running from strudel to Sacher torte. Coeliac-friendly cooking is advertised and delivered.

Booking reality

Ninety-plus places mean Contrin rarely turns into a lottery; book a couple of weeks ahead for August, days ahead otherwise. The private rooms are the scarce resource.

Getting there

The bread-and-butter approach is from Alba di Canazei up Val Contrin, ~1.5 h on a good track (families do it). Hut-to-hut walkers arrive over Passo San Nicolò, or over Passo Ombretta from the Falier side. The latter passes directly under the Marmolada’s colossal south face, one of the great walls of the Alps.

Good to know

• Base camp for the Marmolada’s west ridge via ferrata; serious ground starts fast above the hut.
• The Alpini national gathering (one summer weekend) books the entire valley solid, so check dates before you plan.
• Open June to late September.