Office Escape to 2,727 Meters: How to Sleep Without a Hotel and Bivouac in a Tin Shelter Under the Marmolada

We all know the feeling. A public holiday pops up in May, your mind is craving the mountains, and you’re facing the ultimate dilemma: how to squeeze every drop of adventure out of a long weekend. Sure, the local hills are nice, but when you want more—further, wilder, and above all, higher—it means getting behind the wheel and bracing yourself for a 6 to 8-hour drive. Leaving Friday morning? A total waste of time. Leaving Thursday after work? You’ll arrive at midnight, and most hotel owners will laugh in your face if you ask for a one-night check-in at that hour.

We decided to do things our own way and planned an independent road trip to the Dolomites. On Thursday afternoon, we slammed our laptops shut, threw our backpacks into the Škoda Octavia, and hit the road. Our secret weapon? A custom car sleeping setup that transforms the trunk into a cozy bedroom on wheels. In the storage space underneath the mattresses, we packed heavy hiking boots, a stove, water, and food. We tossed our backpacks and sleeping bags on top and took off. No check-in stress, no reception desks—just pure freedom of car camping on a long weekend.

Around midnight, after nearly eight hours on the highway, we park by Lago Antorno. During the high season, the paid toll road leading all the way up to Rifugio Auronzo right under the iconic Tre Cime is open, but in May, it’s still buried under snow. Down on the asphalt, only a few cars are parked. The air is icy, sharp, and clean. We snap our thermal window blinds onto the Octavia's glass, crawl into our sleeping bags, and within five minutes, we are out cold. When you’re testing wild car camping, discretion and thermal comfort are absolutely everything.

Coffee, Hairpins, and the Calm Before the Storm

We wake up around 8:00 AM, but it’s pitch black inside. These car thermal window blinds work almost too well. I peel them off the windows, and the morning sun floods the car, illuminating the massive rock walls reflecting perfectly on the lake's surface. Thanks to the total blackout, we slept like royalty. The folding car trunk mattress made sure that after eight hours behind the wheel, our backs didn't ache at all.

A quick walk around the lakeshore to stretch our stiff legs, and then we’re cruising down to Cortina d’Ampezzo. We find a café, order a cappuccino, peel a flaky, crispy croissant, and just sit in the sun for a while. Italy exactly as it should be.

Exploring car camping in Italy during May comes with one massive advantage: it’s the off-season. For anyone who loves driving, this is absolute heaven. We cruise through mountain passes like Passo Falzarego, Passo Valparola, and Passo Pordoi. In the summer, these roads are choked with RVs and cyclists, but right now, they are virtually empty. The Octavia might not be a racetrack special, but with its 2.0 TSI engine, tearing through the deserted serpentines is pure joy—the tires giving a subtle chirp in the tight hairpin turns. It’s impossible not to smile.

Through Canazei, we drive into the tucked-away village of Alba-Penia. It’s shortly after noon. We park, lace up our heavy boots, and pack our bags. The goal? Locate and spend the night in Bivacco Marco Dal Bianco—a bright red tin container bolted to the rock directly underneath the south face of the Marmolada. The map is clear: 8 kilometers, 1,228 meters of elevation gain, and roughly four and a half hours of steep climbing.

A Fine Line and the Disappearing Trail

The beginning is brutal. A wide forest trail climbs in sharp, unforgiving switchbacks, and our legs instantly realize what they’re in for today. But then the trees thin out, and the landscape opens up. We find ourselves standing before a massive, wild riverbed filled with white pebbles. The water spreads out wide and shallow, so we ditch the navigation and hike right through the gravel riverbed. Absolute silence surrounds us. The trail climbs gently here, giving us time to watch the sky.

The forecast predicted thunderstorms, but the mountains are always a gamble—the sun might be shining on you from one side, while it’s snowing behind the very next ridge. Heavy, ink-dark clouds begin to gather above us, with occasional shafts of sunlight piercing through. You could cut the tension with a knife.

The breaking point comes at Rifugio Contrin. We cross paths with the last group of hikers heading down. "There are massive snowfields up there, the trail is completely gone," they warn us. A quick look at my watch. If we turn back now, we hike back to the car in the dark. If we keep going and the storm catches us near the top, we’re in deep trouble. But the hunger for adventure wins. We push on.

The green grass vanishes for good; we are hiking strictly on grey rock and scree. As we scramble over the first major horizon, we see exactly why the others turned around. The marked trail doesn't exist anymore. Ahead of us is nothing but a giant snowfield mixed with shifting gravel. The sky closes in completely above our heads, and the Marmolada wraps itself in a thick, white fog. According to the map, we are close. For every step forward, we slide half a step back—the loose gravel crumbles beneath our feet, and occasionally, we sink up to our knees in wet snow.

And then, it happens. Between two sharp rock massifs, a flash of vibrant red breaks through the white. Bivacco Marco Dal Bianco. It took us a grueling 8.5 hours in the end, but we made it.

Nine Square Meters and a Squished Croissant

A tin shelter tucked into the lee of the rocks, surrounded by snow at 2,727 meters above sea level. Inside, it’s a lesson in ascetic luxury—about nine square meters packed with nine bunks and a single table. Two other hikers are already tucked into their sleeping bags on the top bunks, so there will be four of us in the shelter tonight. We fire up the gas stove, heat up some AdventureMenu, and to celebrate this alpine improvisation, we pop open a bottle of red Primitivo that we carried up in the backpack. The wine clinks in our tin mugs, we zip up our down sleeping bags, and life is good.

The morning moves fast. The other two hikers head out while it’s still twilight. We fire up the Jetboil, brew a strong coffee in our moka pot, and fish a completely squished croissant from Cortina out of the backpack. Flattened like a pancake, but it tastes like the best thing on earth. We pack up our sleeping bags, clean up the place, and click the heavy latch of the bivouac shut behind us.

The way down is pure reward. Instead of yesterday’s grueling, hour-long scramble up through the scree, we pick a different strategy—sliding down the snowy slope on our boot soles in a matter of minutes. By the time we reach the riverbed, the sun is fully out. This place completely captured our hearts. We drop our backpacks, kick off our hiking boots, and plunge our tired feet into the crystal-clear, ice-cold mountain water. To make this Italian idyll complete, we pull out the stove once more and brew a mid-morning espresso right in the middle of the riverbed.

We get back to the car around 1:00 PM. Physically exhausted, but our minds are already scheming about where to go next. When you know how to sort out comfortable sleeping in your car, you aren’t tied down by any hotel reservations. Having our custom Škoda mattress in the trunk means 100% freedom. We have no fixed plan for the next day; we want to make our moves purely based on the weather and our mood.

We jump into the car, head into Canazei for some pizza, and figure out where we’ll spend the next night. One thing's for sure—we definitely want to go a bit higher! But more on that next time.