This is one of the most visited tourist places in the Dolomites. It is also one of the largest high pastures in the Dolomites between some of the nicest mountains here. This is not usually regarded as a pass, and I only included it here after much reasoning about this myself, but this is a de facto pass road that takes one from one valley (Ratzestal?) that goes up from the big Isarco valley and over to St. Christina/S. Cristina in Val Gardena.

One could climb from either Ponte Gardena/Waidbruck (465m) or from Prato all’Isarco/Blumau (325m) outside Bolzano/Bozen in the Isarco/Eisack valley. Both these climbs are long and hard. The climb from St. Christina (1311m or 1391m) in Val Gardena is partly on gravel road through the forest. I am not sure if the road via Monte Pana is better or not, but there are two alternative roads out of St. Christina up to Saltaria and the pass. These roads are probably only hard due to being gravel if using a road bike.

If coming from Panider Sattel/Passo di Pinei/Jëuf de Pinei (1442m) one starts the climb in Kastelruth/Castelrotto (1049m) and if one comes from Nigerpass/Passo Nigra (1688m) one starts the climb below Prosels/Presule (716m) on the main road from Prato all’Isarco.

The hardest climb (apart from a new possibility below) up here starts by the old Kastelruth/Castelrotto railway station (429m). This road was bad in year 2000 when I climbed up there on my first time to a pass above 2000 metres (Passo Sella), so it may still be bad until you reach the circle road above that takes you to the road from Ponte Gardena to Castelrotto.

One could now also climb to this pass (or a third variant of it) via Bula/Pufels/Bulla from St. Ulrich/Ortisei (1231m) on a very steep asphalt road (I do not know how steep it is). You take off on the road to Panider Sattel to Bulla and then keep climbing until Bocca di Monte (1750m) and the highest point will be similar as for the other optional gravel roads (1873m). (There is a short descent on this road from 1552m to 1471m.) This road could be used if climbing from Chiusa/Klausen (537m) and from Ponte Gardena. There is finally also a direct road bypassing Bulla (zoom in on the map) which is asphalted at the start, but I am not sure it is possible to use with a road bike as it might simply be too steep and bad (242m in 1.6 km instead of 323m in 4.8 km).