Behind the Photo: Best of 2016 - Rifiguio Rosa

Oh Italy.  The culture, the food, the wine.  Italy is one of those places that if I were to believe heaven were a place, it would be Italy.  

The Dolomites are a very unique mountain range and unlike any other found in the Alps.  The rock is made up of ancient seabed, hence the name dolomite.  Compared to granite, which is found in many other ranges, this rock is typically softer hence why it's more susceptible to erosive forces, but those forces are what have carved and created this stunning mountain range.

Most ranges in the Alps look like your traditional mountains - steep angles rising to pointy summits.  The Dolomites, however, are mostly columns of rock rising straight up from the ground below - vertical walls with mostly squared tops.  Think of rock features you would find in southern Utah, now turn those into mountain ranges and you have the Dolomites.  

Lago di Misurina is a stunning lake just outside of the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo.  Cortina is one of the well known ski resorts in the region and given the type of stores you'll find here, I can only presume it's the Italian version of Aspen.  Shopping aside, this region is beautiful and surrounding by stunning peaks.  The way that I found Lago di Misurina was through some online searching - what caught my eye was the beauty of a lake with a hotel across the water to the backdrop of magnificent mountains.  I knew I had to see this for myself.  

I was here in 2015, but never really got any photos that I was truly happy with.  My visit in 2015 was when we were passing through after leaving Innsbruck and heading to Bled, Slovenia.  We were crunched for time, so this was literally a detour.  This past summer we had much more time as we were staying in the region, so I was able to get a sunset photo finally.  

Having already known where the lake was, I didn't have to go exploring.  We spent the day running around the region and ended up here for the sunset.  I setup my camera and waited and the result is the photo below.  

The Dolomites are second on my list for favorite places in the Alps.  Next time I'm going to spend more time in this region.

 
 
Rifugio Misurina

Rifugio Misurina

TJ SimonComment