Val di Fassa:
The Challenge to Overturism
How to protect one of the most beautiful landscapes of the Dolomites without extinguishing its soul
There is a time, in summer, when the Canazei parking lot fills up even before dawn. Cars arrive from every corner of Europe – German, Dutch, Polish license plates, some Italian almost out of geographical duty. The paths get clogged as early as eight in the morning. Shelters fill up at noon. The marmots, once curious and standing on the rocks watching passersby, have gone who knows where. This is the least told face of the Val di Fassa: one of the most beautiful Dolomite valleys in the world, and also one of the most crowded.
The Fassa Valley extends for approximately 22 kilometers in the heart of eastern Trentino, wedged between massifs that now belong to the UNESCO World Heritage Site: the Catinaccio-Rosengarten, the Sella Group, the Marmolada-the queen of the Dolomites-at 3,343 meters, and the glacier that retreats a few meters more each year. It is a Ladin-speaking land, with ancient traditions and mountain cuisine that smells of dumplings and strangolapreti. But it is also an area that, in recent years, has found itself facing increasingly difficult-to-manage tourist pressure.
Overturism – tourist overcrowding – is not a theoretical issue here. It is a daily reality that affects the quality of life of residents, the integrity of Alpine ecosystems and, paradoxically, the visitor experience itself. Yet the Val di Fassa did not give up. He began to reason, to experiment, to propose alternatives. And among these alternatives there is also something unexpected: taking flight.
A Landscape that Calls for Respect
To understand what is at stake, you must first understand what needs to be protected. The landscape of Val di Fassa is, quite simply, among the most extraordinary in Europe. It’s not just a question of high peaks or scenic rocks, although the Catinaccio with its Enrosadira – the optical phenomenon that dyes the walls fiery red at sunset – is a spectacle that takes your breath away every time, even the hundredth time.
It’s the complexity of the landscape that makes it unique: the high pastures in summer where cows still graze according to millennia-old practices, the fir and larch forests that change color with the seasons, the mountain huts where cheese takes shape with the same gestures as centuries ago. It is the silence between one step and another on a path in the Dolomites, broken only by the wind or the distant call of an Alpine chough. It is light, that Dolomite light that 19th-century painters came to seek from all over Europe and which still has no equivalent today.
The Marmolada deserves a separate discussion. The largest glacier in the Dolomites is now an open wound in the heart of the mountain: it has lost over 30% of its surface in the last thirty years, and the most optimistic climate models predict its almost total disappearance by the end of the century. The tragedy of July 2022-when a huge serac broke away, killing eleven people-made visible to all what glaciologists had been denouncing for years. The Marmolada is not just a tourist destination: it is a thermometer of climate change, and its agony tells something essential about the fate of the Alpine mountains.
In this context, the issue of overturism is not just about visitor comfort. It’s about the survival of an ecosystem. Every path eroded by excessive trampling, every alpine meadow degraded by overcrowding, every stream polluted by abandoned waste is a loss that goes far beyond aesthetics. It is a depletion of biodiversity, a reduction in the resilience capacity of a territory already under climate stress.
The Weight of Numbers
The data speaks clearly. In the pre-pandemic years, the Val di Fassa recorded over 3.5 million annual tourist arrivals – a huge number for a valley with just over 9,000 permanent residents. The ratio of tourists to inhabitants is among the highest in Italy, and among the highest in the entire Alpine region. In July and August, and during the Christmas-January period, the tourist population can exceed the resident population by ten times. There are many consequences. Traffic on the valley roads – the SS 48 delle Dolomiti – reaches saturation levels that also make local mobility difficult. Parking is insufficient, despite continuous expansions. Property prices have risen to levels that make homebuying impossible for many young Ladins, contributing to a demographic decline that threatens the very survival of the local culture and language. Alpine refuges, jewels of mountain tradition, risk turning into high-altitude fast food restaurants if commercial pressure continues unregulated.
Yet it would be wrong to demonise tourism itself. The Val di Fassa thrives on tourism: its second homes, hotels, ski lifts, and restaurants employ a large portion of the working population. Taking away tourism would mean taking away the livelihoods of thousands of families. The challenge is not to eliminate flows, but to make them sustainable – to better distribute them across time and space, to direct them towards quality experiences, to reduce the impact on the most vulnerable ecosystems.
Activities for an Aware Tourism
One of the most interesting responses to overturism is the diversification of supply into activities that, by their nature, cannot be practiced en masse. It’s not about creating inaccessible elite activities, but about enhancing experiences that require expertise, attention, and a real connection to the local area.
Ski Mountaineering and Ski Mountaineering: The Mountain in Silence
In winter, while the ski slopes are crowded from morning to evening, there is another way to experience the mountains of the Val di Fassa: ski mountaineering. With sealskins under your skis, you climb silently through the woods and snow-capped hills, enjoying views that few others see. The Sella Group, the Padon, and the less frequented slopes of the Marmolada offer itineraries of great beauty, with minimal impact on the environment compared to traditional alpine skiing. No energy resources are consumed for the facilities, no queues are produced at the chairlifts, no snow is compressed with snowcats. You go up on your own two feet, you go down in the fresh snow, and you find yourself – in the evening – with a different, more real tiredness.
Trekking and High Route: Slowness as Choice
In summer, Val di Fassa is crossed by some of the most beautiful hiking trails in Europe. The Alta Via number 2 of the Dolomites, which passes through these parts, is a multi-day itinerary that takes the walker through landscapes of extraordinary variety: scree, alpine lakes, rocky ridges, pastures. The Way of Legends touches the places most charged with Ladin history and mythology. The Scenic Trail, which runs along the sides of the Catinaccio, offers views of the Rosengarten that change hour by hour with the light. Multi-day trekking with an overnight stay in a refuge is, by its very nature, an antidote to overturism: those who walk for several days consume fewer resources, travel on foot, carry little, leave little. It is a slow, attentive tourism, which generates deep contact with the territory. The refuges of the Fassa Valley-from the Fronza alle Coronelle Refuge to the Fuciade Refuge under the San Pellegrino Pass-are places where the essential dimension of the mountain can be recovered.
Climbing in the Dolomites: Vertical and Meditative
The Dolomites are the cradle of alpine climbing. Here, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the first ascents of the great walls were born: the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the Marmolada, the Catinaccio. Today, climbing is one of the fastest growing activities in the Val di Fassa area, and for good reasons: it requires technical preparation, total attention, and absolute respect for the rock. You don’t climb en masse: you climb in a rope, in small groups, with the concentration that only the vertical can impose.
The via ferratas, more accessible to families and newbies, run along the walls of the side valleys offering strong emotions in safety. The Laurenzi Ferrata at Marmolada, the Penia Ferrata, and the equipped trails around Moena and Pozza di Fassa: each tells a story of rock, altitude, and rewarded hard work.
Two-seater paraglider in Val di Fassa: Flying over the Dolomites with Fassafly
And then there’s the sky. Because the Val di Fassa is not only to be looked at from the bottom up: it is also to be contemplated from the top down, when flying.
The two-seater paraglider in Val di Fassa, proposed by Fassafly with professional driver Jimmy Pacher, is one of the most intense and environmentally friendly experiences you can have in this area. These are tandem flights-the passenger flies with the pilot, without the need for experience or specific preparation-that depart from the slopes of the Sella group or from the altitudes of the Dolomite passes and glide towards the valley floor following the thermal currents that rise from the sun-heated rock.
Fassafly stands for professionalism, safety and respect for the mountains. Jimmy Pacher knows these air currents like few others: he has been flying in Val di Fassa for years, he has traveled the sky above the Catinaccio, the Marmolada, the Pordoi in every season and condition. He knows how the wind turns around the rocky towers of the Rosengarten on summer afternoons, he knows the thermal bubbles that form on the south-facing slopes, he recognizes the currents that descend icy from the glacier’s couloirs. Trusting him means flying safely, but also flying with someone who deeply loves this sky.
Paragliding is, by definition, a low-impact activity. It produces no emissions: the sail inflates with the wind, the wing glides on natural currents, the pilot works with meteorology and not against it. You take off from specific points – without building anything, without altering the landscape – and land in the meadows of the valley floor. It is a way of frequenting the mountain that leaves no traces, does not consume soil, does not produce noise except that of the wind between the cords.
From the visitor’s point of view, then, it is a literal and metaphorical change of perspective. Flying over the Val di Fassa means seeing it like never before: the side valleys opening like the fingers of one hand, the blue ribbon of the Avisio stream flowing into the valley floor, the walls of the Catinaccio changing color with the inclination of the light, the Marmolada rising alone with its ever-thinner ice cap. It’s a way of understanding the true scale of this landscape, its vastness, its radical beauty. And often – many of those who have flown with Fassafly report – it is an experience that transforms the way we look at mountains forever.
The two-seater paraglider in Val di Fassa is also, in a certain sense, a symbolic antidote to overturism: it teaches us to be light, to move with the territory rather than despite it, to occupy the sky rather than clutter the paths. It is no coincidence that those who fly often return home with a different awareness of the place they have visited.
The Responses of the Territory
Val di Fassa did not stand firm in the face of the challenge. In recent years, the Val di Fassa Tourism Company – APT Fassa – has promoted a series of initiatives to better distribute flows and reduce pressure on the most critical points. The public transport system has been upgraded, with shuttle buses connecting park-and-ride facilities to the valley floor and major destinations, reducing car traffic during rush hour.
Some particularly fragile areas, such as certain alpine lakes and paths in Natura 2000 zones, are now managed with reservation and access quota systems. Lake Carezza-technically beyond the borders of the Fassa Valley but in the adjacent Dolomite area-has become a case study in how to manage an iconic site without destroying it: paid access, mandatory shuttles, and widespread information. The results, although with some initial resistance, were positive.
On the cultural front, the recovery and enhancement of Ladin culture and language – among the oldest in Europe, spoken by some 20,000 people in the Dolomite valleys – is becoming a differentiating element of the tourist offer. Visiting the Fassa Valley also means encountering a vibrant, non-museum-like culture: place names in Ladin, traditional festivals, and cuisine with its signature products-Moena stink, apple strudel, and cjarsons-tell a story of adaptation and resilience that resonates with the challenges of the present.
Seasonality as Key
One of the most powerful tools against overturism is seasonal adjustment: convincing visitors to come during less crowded periods, enhancing the attractions of the mid-seasons. The Val di Fassa in autumn – when the larches are tinged with gold and the Dolomites seem truer, more austere, more themselves – is perhaps even more beautiful than in summer, yet it remains considerably less frequented.
Spring, with snow still deep at altitude and crocus flowers sprouting at the edges of snow-covered slopes, is a magical season for those who ski mountaineering or want to explore the woods the moment they wake up. Autumn is the ideal season for trekking in the colored woods, to visit the mountain huts during the last weeks of opening, to savor the tranquility of a refuge with few guests and a breathtaking view.
Paragliding with Fassafly also lends itself beautifully to the mid-seasons: the thermal conditions of September and October, with the cooler air and autumn colours of the forests, offer flights of extraordinary beauty. And prices, during these times, are often more affordable.
Possible future
Val di Fassa can do it. It has the cultural resources, entrepreneurial skills, and environmental awareness to meet the challenge of overturism without losing its soul. But it requires bold choices: limit access where necessary, even at the cost of losing a few tourists in the short term; invest in the quality of the experience rather than the quantity of rides; train guides, pilots, refuge managers, and operators who are, above all, ambassadors of a way of being in the mountains.
It also requires, perhaps above all, a different narrative. Val di Fassa is not a theme park: it is a living place, with a history, a language, a community that has the right to continue to exist and prosper. The tourists who visit it are guests, not customers. This subtle but fundamental distinction is the starting point for truly sustainable tourism.
And while we are discussing rules, limitations, management plans, there are already experiences today that show the way. Flying with Fassafly over the Dolomites, walking for three days on the Alta Via with a light backpack, climbing a via ferrata at dawn before the crowds arrive, sitting in silence on a rock at the foot of the Catinaccio and waiting for the Enrosadira: these are the experiences that make a visitor fall in love with this place. Not the selfies in line at the cable car, not the pizza in a three-hundred-seat restaurant, not the hastily bought souvenir.
Val di Fassa has everything to become a model of quality alpine tourism. The Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, belong to everyone – but this also means that we all have a duty to treat them with respect. The challenge of overturism is not just a challenge for those who live there: it is a challenge for those who visit them. And accepting it is the first step to truly deserving of this mountain
