Ütia · a Ladin refuge · rebuilt 1962
A refuge above
the tree line,
where the weather
decides the day.
Twelve beds, one masonry stove, one dinner a night, at 2,410 metres on the Sella massif. The mountain is the host. Larès only keeps you warm and high while the sky writes the rest.
See today on the mountainThe day the weather writes
Rooms by altitude
and weather
Larès does not sell tiers. It offers three places on the mountain, and the forecast decides which are warm, which are open, and what the kitchen sends up. Choose today's sky.
- Jëuf de Sela — 2,680 m
- Larès — 2,410 m
- Valley station — 1,540 m
- At the refuge
- +8°C
- Wind
- Calm, 6 km/h W
- Freezing level
- 3,200 m
- From the kitchen
- Terrace lunch: speck, mountain cheese, rye.
On a bluebird morning the doors stand open before the sun clears the towers. Come up early.
open2,410 m
La Stüa the stube
Long table, terrace doors open to the Sella.
open2,410 m
Ël Tabià the loft beds
Larch bunks under the eaves, the window full of peaks.
open2,680 m
Jëuf de Sela the pass camp
Dawn start at five for the pass and the ferrata.
Larch & stone
Built of the one tree
that climbs this high.
The walls are drystone below and larch above — larès in the valley's Ladin, the last timber before the mountain gives way to rock. The wood was cut on the slope, the stone lifted from the scree. Nothing here was carried up that the mountain did not already hold.
Warmth is felted, not heated: grey loden wool doubled on every bunk, boots dried overnight on the larch rack, the stove fed with split larch that smells of resin when it catches.
The stube · one dinner a night
One pot, one table,
whoever made it up.
Dinner is at seven and it is the same for everyone: a black pot of barley and speck broth, dark bread, a wedge of mountain cheese, water from the spring. Climbers, walkers, and the guardian's family eat at one long larch table around the stove.
Half board — bed, dinner, and breakfast before the dawn start — is €72 a person. Day guests are welcome at the table when there is room.
The guardians · three generations
The stove is lit
before you arrive.
Marta Comploj keeps Larès as her grandmother did: up before the guests, the stove drawing by five, the pot on by six. In a storm she stays awake with it. She reads the sky the way the valley taught her — which is why the forecast on this page is hers, not a satellite's.
“The mountain decides. I only keep the fire and the door.”
The walk up
Two hours and forty minutes from the valley station, or a chairlift and one hour on foot. The path is marked 2 and 2A. Bring layers; the last shelf holds the wind.
- Season late June – early October
- Beds 12, in the loft
- Reach Sella side, from Passo Gardena
Book a bed
Write to the guardian.
Larès takes bookings by enquiry — the mountain is small and every bed is answered by hand. The guardian answers by evening.