Hikes in the Alps in August

August hikes away from the Ferragosto crowds: the Strada delle 52 Gallerie on the Pasubio, the Rutor valley, Lago d'Emet, the Capanna del Forno.

August is the busiest month of the year in the mountains, and walkers feel it above all in the Dolomites and at the most photographed spots, where car parks, lifts and huts reach saturation in the middle weeks. The hikes are the same as in July, since the season is the same, but the way of choosing them changes: start early, prefer weekdays, and keep the lesser-known valleys for the weekend. By this point in the summer the snow at altitude has almost entirely gone, and the glaciers show their most exposed face.

If you are looking for space, our list has plenty of it: the Rutor valley with its waterfalls and the Rifugio Deffeyes in the Aosta Valley, Lago d'Emet with the Rifugio Bertacchi and the long loop from Lago del Truzzo to Alpe Lendine in Valle Spluga, and the Capanna del Forno in Bregaglia with its Patagonian views. If you want history instead, choose the Strada delle 52 Gallerie on the Pasubio, seven hours up to the Rifugio Achille Papa, or the Lagazuoi loop with its wartime tunnels. In Germany, the Herzogstand and Heimgarten loop looks out over the Walchensee and the Bavarian plain.

Good to know

15 August, Ferragosto, is the peak of the season in the Italian Alps, with long queues for huts and lifts and car parks full by morning in the best-known places; if you want to sleep in a mountain hut in those days, book well in advance. Two weeks earlier, on 1 August, Switzerland celebrates its national day with bonfires on the heights and fireworks, and walking in a Swiss valley that evening means seeing the ridges dotted with fires.

August also has a sky worth watching: the Perseid meteor shower peaks around the night of 12 to 13 August, and far from the lights of the plain, at a hut or a bivouac, the show is another matter entirely. Anyone walking the Strada delle 52 Gallerie may want to remember that the Italian army built it in 1917, in a matter of months, to move men and supplies towards the summit of the Pasubio out of sight of enemy fire.