homeHofmahdjoch/Passo Castrin (tunnel)
Hofmahdjoch/Passo Castrin (tunnel) Height Climbing height - length
1698m 975m - 17.16 km - 5.7% (Revò)
1128m - 16.77 km - 6.7% (Ponte del Castelàz - Cagnò)
1284m - 23.44 km - 5.5% (Ponte di Mostizzolo - Toflin)
722m - 7.78 km - 9.3% (bivio Forcella di Brez/Britschner Jöchl/Gioàt)
783m - 9.08 km - 8.7% (Ultental/Valle di Non)
1436m - 24.33 km - 5.9% (Lana)
Difficulty Beauty
3 (5) 3-4 (5)
How to get there

This road was built by money from the EU, but for which there were little need apart from connecting the German speaking enclaves of Proves/Proveis and Laurein/Lauregno to the German speaking Ultental/Val d’Ultimo. This is, however, a nice road from Proves/Proveis to Ultental near Merano. Unfortunately there are long tunnels, but they are lit and good (the road only opened in 1998).

One can start the climb in the south above Cles at three different points: Revò (723m), Ponte del Castelàz (Cagnò) (570m) or on the west side of Rio Pescara at Toflin (578m), which is the lowest point after turning off the big road that goes to Passo del Tonale (1882m) over Ponte di Mostizzolo (594m). If going over the Forcella di Brez/Britschner Jöchl/Gioàt (1397m) you will start the climb at 976m. The northern climb from the nice Ultental/Val d’Ultimo (915m) starts 13.4 km from Lana (313m). The pass is not very steep on either side.

Other comments It is very beautiful in the area around Proves/Proveis and Matzlaun (if you go up there) and in the Ultental. This pass is only noted at this height in an official online Trentino cycling guide (or was at the time I wrote this). The walking pass above at 1805m on a gravel road (that ends soon after the pass) is the only one noted on maps. There is a good detailed (1:25 000) free map of the area on the web: Le Maddalene. I could very much recommend to visit Passo Fresna (1460m) a short stretch from Proves/Proveis with a short and easy gravel stretch on this side (the longer serpentines gravel road from the other side should be nice too, but maybe it has not the same good surface, but it would be a great alternative when coming up from Ponte di Mostizzolo).
Map