Having planned another phototrip for this year, I had to cut my time short due to personal reasons. Nonetheless I took my remaining time to visit the Dolomites for a second time, a picture of milky way over the three pinnacles (Tre Cime – Drei Zinnen) in mind.

So I packed my car on Friday evening and rode until “Zirler Berg” in Austria, which is about 50 km away from the Italian border. I had a short night there and started at 6.00 am already with direction to the Dolomites.

The maps are showing a big parking lot at the south side of Tre Cime and I thought it a good idea to go there, because this seemed to be the easiest way to my desired photographing position.

Two and a half hours later and 30 € of road charge shorter I arrived at the above mentioned parking lot. I packed my backbag immediately and started the hike around “Tre Cime”, always looking at the watch, to check out how much time I will need in the evening to reach my favorite photo spot.

The whole round took me 3 hours inclusive lunch break and a coffe at “Langalm”. Okay…so I knew now when to go back with direction to “Dreizinnenhütte”, hoping to take pictures of “golden hour”, “blue hour” and last but not least “milky way”.

I was back at my favorite spot at 6.00 pm, just at the beginning of “golden hour” and was building up my tripod and the panorama device, taking pictures and drinking tea. A nice chat with two hikers from the UK made my waiting time a little shorter. Milky way was to “show up” at half past eight. Meanwhile it was quite cold and also humid as hell as I should realize later on.

I made a series of pictures for a separate front with my 12 mm lens, in order to put pictures of front and background together to avoid too much noise owing the necessary high ISO of the camera. After some time I realized, that the lens of my fisheye was completely wet and that there was no way to get it dry again.

I changed my lenses, put the lens hood on, in hope to avoid more humidity, and took another two or three series of the “Tre Cime” panorama. Maybe the quality is not breathtaking but it worked out for one quite okay picture at least.

At half past nine I made my way back to my campervan, this time the eastern route, with the wider and easier path. It was dark, foggy and freezing cold by now. At 10.30 pm I reached my car eventually and was grateful for my warm and dry sleeping bag.

Next morning when I woke up, it was just foggy. Okay, I thought, lets stay in bed and sleep a little longer. Half an hour later I opened my eyes again and saw the clouds turning red in the morning light…

I got up and took my clothes on as fast as possible, thankfully fast enough to catch a series of pics of the rising sun.

I stayed for one more day at the parking lot, planning to make one more milky way series directly from the location there, but unfortunately the clouds where too fast that evening. The weather was about to change.

Next morning I left the place, had to pay 15 € more for the two days stay and hit the road with direction to Arco near Garda lake for shopping.

Later that day I decided to drive north again, hoping to have a hike around Langkofel the following day. I got to a place in St. Ulrich for the night, which I knew already from the year before.

The next morning came up with a clear sky, so I decided to drive to Sella pass immediately for the sunrise and having my morning coffe there. Driving up the pass I realized that it had not only been raining yesterday, that it had also been snowing until 1400 m of altitude. No good idea to hike around Langkofel than.

I changed my plans and drove to Pozza di Fassa and had my hike there, thinking about photographing at Karersee again in the evening.

But until noon the sky was overcast again and I changed my plans for the second time that day and drove back to lake d’Antorno near the three pinnacles to make some pictures there.

Next morning my free time was over and I had to go back to Germany, beeing of course a little curious to look on my computer screen at the loads of pictures I had taken in the Dolomites.