The history of the King Albert 1° alpine refuge

Its roots date back to the early 20th century, when Tita Piaz, the famous mountaineer and mountain guide from Fassa, also known as the "devil of the Dolomites", bought the former shelter and built the refuge.

"Catinaccio" comes from the Ladin word "Ciadinàc", which means mountain basin of detritus. Even today the Ladin people, the dwellers of Fassa valley, call "their" mountain that way.
The alpinist history of the Rosengarten basin and its refuges begins in 1874, with the first ascent of the prestigious peak of the namesake mountain accomplished by English people coming from the Fassa valley. In 1878, the Sudtiroler Johann Santner found out a new entrance called “Gartl” along the narrow gorge where the eponymous via ferrata stands today.
In the summer of 1900, the Rhineland department of the Deutscher and Österreichischer alpine club built the Kölnerhütte (Fronza Coronelle refuge) on the West side and the Vajolet refuge on the East side.
It was the birth of a new era - of a new way of experiencing the mountains - and in 1910 they began to equip the Santner pass gorge with iron wire ropes to facilitate access to the Vajolet basin, where Marino Pederiva built a wooden hut in 1929.
The famous mountain guide of Pera di Fassa, Tita Piaz, then bought that first shelter, and in 1933 built the Gartlhütte or Re Alberto 1° refuge in homage to the famous Belgian king, who climbed the Dolomites alongside the "devil of the Dolomites". The refuge was later expanded a couple of times to form the current refuge and renovated in the last ten years.