SUNRISE AT TRE CIMELottie & Jack

Lottie and Jack wanted to elope the hard way, on foot and before sunrise. So the three of us met in the dark, walked up into the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, and had the three most famous peaks in the Alps almost to ourselves as the sun came up. They could have stayed there all day. Instead, once the light went flat, we drove on across the mountains for a second act at sunset.

Here is the honest thing about a Tre Cime di Lavaredo elopement: it is easy if you know the place and a bit miserable if you do not. The road up is a toll road, and the car park at the top fills before most people have had their coffee, so you go early, earlier than feels reasonable, and you get the mountain to yourself. Sorting that out, the timing and the logistics, so the morning runs without stress, is what experience is for. All Lottie and Jack had to do was walk and look. And there is a proper walk: a few kilometres of trail with real climb to the best view of the three peaks. That distance is not a chore to get through. It is the adventure, and you feel like you have earned the morning before a single photo.

The hike up in the dark

We started before there was any light, head torches on, the mountains just shapes in the dark. As the sky went from black to blue, the trail opened up and the spires of the Cadini came out of the shadow one by one. Lottie and Jack barely spoke. There is not much to say on a walk like that. You keep climbing, and you wait for the sun.

Sunrise at the three peaks

Then it came. The sun caught the north faces of Tre Cime and the whole wall of rock went gold, and for a while it was just the two of them, the three peaks, and light you could not have ordered better. This is why people cross the world for this mountain, and why they get up in the dark to see it. Lottie and Jack stood in it, and I worked fast, because a morning like that does not wait around.

Onward to Cinque Torri and Passo Giau

They could have stopped there and gone for breakfast happy. But the Dolomites are full of these places, and Lottie and Jack were not done. So we drove west, out to the Cinque Torri, the cluster of rock towers above Cortina, and up to the Passo Giau for the last of the sun. A sunrise and a sunset worth of adventure in a single day. If you want to elope at Tre Cime, or anywhere in the Dolomites, this is the day I love to build. Come and find me, and I will get you up the mountain without the stress.