Route 1: "Cianpo De Crosc" ring course
Time:	1 hour - 1 hour 30 minutes (ring course).
Height difference:	100 metres; (1670 m. Malga Ra Stua - 1770 m. Cason dei Cazadore).
Best period of the year:	All over the year; in winter with snow rakets.
Main sights and points of interest:	Landscape and nature.
Difficulty:	The itinerary is along old military roads and sheep grazing tracks.
How to get to the starting point:	Take the State Highway no. 51 (Alemagna) to just after Km. 111, where there is a crossroads for Malga Ra Stua near a sharp turn; continue along the asphalt road for about 4 Km as far as the car park in front of the Alpine summer pasture area. From July 15 to September 15, the through road for the Alpine summer pasture area is closed to the public and there is a shuttle service in operation, which starts from the Park hut at the side of the Fiames line. As an alternative, the route can be used to get to the Malga Ra Stua ring course, which starts at the Sant'Uberto car park.
Excerpt from "Tabacco" map scala 1:25000:	Click to enlarge

General description

Follow the main road for the Senes refuge for about 200 metres, as far as a sign which indicates Cason dei Cazadore; go up to the right (panoramic bench over Malga Ra Stua) and enter a small depression, parallel to the bottom of the valley and separated from it by a slight rising; the path then crosses a semi-flat area with the remains of the perimeter walls of war barracks. Go down slightly to cross the Ru de ra Cuodes.

In the dialect of the Ampezzo region, "cuode" is the stone used to sharpen scythes or other cutting tools and is made of hard-to-find flint material. In the Ra Stua area, there are outcrops of Jurassic and Cretaceous period geological formations which, almost unique in the Eastern Dolomites, have flint layers ideal for making "cuode" tools.
In archaeology, the presence of flint layers is generally a starting point for very important digs, as they are the source of cutting tools such as scythes. The areas rich in these materials, in fact, were obligatory collection points for Mesolithic hunters, who used chipped scythes for cutting meat and as arms. The outcrops of the Ra Stua area and the extension of the Lerosa prairies above, which can be compared with those in Mondeval, could be, therefore, an important clue for research into a prehistoric human presence in this part of the Dolomites.

Just beyond, you cross the path that leads to Pian de Socroda. Go straight, along the right edge of one of the many streams that flow at the start of the Boite, until you cross it over a footbridge. Go up slightly to come into view of the magnificent Cason dei Cazadore clearing. Continue along flat ground to reach the broad Ciampo de Crosc levelling just beyond. Then take the main road to the left for about a hundred metres, turn to the right and cross the two bridges over the Boite (the old name for the Boite in this area is "Aga de Ciampo de Crosc").

A few hundred metres up from the Ciampo de Crosc bridges, you find the Boite springs, at the bottom of the two karst plateaux of Foses and Rudo. Along these plateaux on a thick base of limestone rock, which can easily be carved, the waters flowing here were able to dig and create underground routes and to go beyond the entire rocky thickness below through narrowings, wells and meanders, to come out again, three hundred metres below, at the end of the Boite valley at two separate points.
Of particular landscape and geomorphologic interest is the meandering water course in the section which crosses Ciampo de Crosc; this development, as can be seen from the presence of dead branches and course changes, is developing continuously and is characteristic of water courses which run in flat areas, normally nearer the mouth of a river than to its springs.

After the second bridge, turn to the left immediately at the foot of a large mass and take an unmarked but obvious path; this leads, through a quite dense wood, to the Valon Scuro ("Dark Valley"), a characteristic depression behind a slight rising and parallel to the bottom of the main valley. Along the way, you will cross the avalanche channels of the North side of the Lainòres and the path will gradually turn into a military road. Keep going along it towards the valley and you will come into view of Ra Stua again. Without turning to the left, go straight as far as the stable and the bridge in front of the alpine summer pasture area.

At the bottom of the Valon Scuro, which is called the "Dark Valley" because of the dense tree vegetation and the lack of exposure to the sun, it often occurs, especially in Spring, that you can find numerous plants crushed by the avalanches of every Winter from the steep slopes of the Lainòres, whose name is self-explanatory. The Northern-facing slopes with extended snowfall periods like this are typified by the vegetation rich in birch, green alder and rowan tree; these broadleaf trees are typical of the high Alpine areas but are not very widespread.