Seceda Ridge

The cable car up from Ortisei drops you into wind and thin light, and then it's forty minutes on foot along the spine before the Geisler group finally reveals itself — a wall of grey spires the locals have watched change colour every evening for centuries. I got lucky with the cloud that day: it rolled in low and slow, wrapping the two furthest peaks and leaving the foreground ridge, grazed bare by generations of Alpine cattle, lit clean and gold.