OUR HISTORY

The history of the Passo Sella Refuge begins at the beginning of the 20th century, precisely in 1904. In fact, it was in that year that the Bolzano section of the DuÖAV officially built a structure to give refuge to travelers and hikers who passed through the Sella Pass following the road that connected Val di Fassa and Val Gardena. Before 1904, however, a small two-storey building with some rooms already existed.

In the period between the first construction and the beginning of the 1930s, the refuge was expanded several times until it took on its definitive shape, which remained unchanged on the outside until September 2013.

The defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War was followed by the peace treaty of Versailles which assigned southern Tyrol to Italy. On that occasion all the refuges managed by DuÕAV began to pass into the hands of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club). The Passo Sella refuge changed owners in 1924 and the following year it was taken over by the Valentini-Cappadozzi family who managed it for 75 years, until 2010.

In those years Alpine tourism had great development, both in summer and winter and the structure soon became one of the main destinations in the area. There are many celebrities and well-known personalities who have visited and stayed in the Passo Sella Refuge over the years. Among these also some of the most famous Italian and foreign royals: Prince Umberto of Savoy, Princess Mafalda, the royal couple of Bavaria and Bladovino of Belgium who learned to ski right here.

The mountaineers who have chosen the Passo Sella refuge as a base for their excursions to the peaks of the area deserve a separate note. These included Paul Gohmann at the beginning of the 20th century, the engineer Arturo Tanesini and, in the 1930s, Emilio Comici, the King of the Sixth Degree, before opening the refuge that bears his name at the foot of the Sassolungo.
In September 2013, after having remained unchanged in external appearance for over a century, the new managers of the refuge, Alan Stuffer and Alan Perathoner, decided to demolish the structure to rebuild it. From this bold undertaking the Passo Sella Dolomiti Mountain Resort was born. The new managers tried to fit the structure into the landscape by using untreated wood and native stone for construction. Furthermore, thanks to the various shapes chosen for the roof of the structure, it is lower than before, minimizing the visual impact on the surrounding landscape.