Our Dolomites guide, stopped, chewed on his unlit cheroot and looked with a fixed stare at the distant peaks. Then he smiled, turned around and took my hand as I clambered - about as gracefully as mountain goat on skates - along the boulder-strewn path behind him.

“Have you climbed much?” I said by way of making a little polite conversation.

“I climb Everest and recently K2,” he said, without a trace of boastfulness but with the matter-of-fact tone most people would use when talking about a trip to the shops.

Behind that statement lay another continent and another story far more challenging, gruelling and ultimately tragic than the pleasant amble we were currently engaged on.

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Roberto Manni was a member of the ill-fated team that tackled K2 - the world’s second-highest mountain - in August 2008 when an avalanche and deteriorating conditions claimed the lives of 11 climbers, including the Irish climber Gerard McDonnell. It was the worst tragedy on the mountain for 20 years. Manni and another Italian climber, Marco Confortola, who was suffering badly from frostbite, were airlifted to hospital.

Manni was understandably reluctant to dwell on that event, but was keen to show myself and my three fellow ramblers on the route, the peaks and the shelter that link the Dolomites with Britain.

We’d started at Madonna di Campiglio, to the north west of Trento in Italy’s northernmost region. This upmarket mountain resort which has become a haven for sports stars, including members of the Juventus football team and - during his glory years - Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher.

A ski-lift took us over late-summer meadows took us to the start of our trek, the Rifugio Stoppani. A rifugio is the sort of Italian equivalent of a youth hostel for all ages - usually a solid, two-storey mountain retreat where you can buy decent food and get overnight shelter if you’re prepared to rough it a bit. They’re open from June until September or October.

We set off eastwards across a marked path. Ahead of us in the sort of panorama that would gladden any hiker’s heart lay the soaring pinnacles and glacially-moulded peaks of the Dolomiti di Brenta. At 2,440m it was chilly enough to wrap up in several layers, although the brisk walking, with the odd delay to take a photograph or admire a rare outcrop of Edelweiss, soon warmed us up. And we were not alone. Scores of other walkers, ranging in age from babies carried in slings to veteran walkers armed with their alpine sticks passed us on the sometimes testing mountain path.

After an hour or so of breathtaking and breath-conserving views, with Manni almost skipping along in front of us, we could see the Rifugio Tuckett in the distance, a small piece of the Dolomites that is forever British. The rifugio is named in honour of the Victorian climber Francis Fox Tuckett (1834-1913), of Frenchay, near Bristol, who in a lifetime of climbing opened up the Dolomites to the world.

According to contemporary sources Tuckett and fellow British climber Douglas Freshfield crossed the Dolomites with no maps and little equipment, relying instead on skill and intuition. Such was the admiration of his Italian friends that the already existing Berliner Hütte became the Rifugio Tuckett, from where it’s possible to see the pass, Bocca del Tuckett (2,648m).

After a quick lunch of polenta and chicken, surrounded by sepia pictures of Tuckett and his Victorian counterparts it was back to the mountain trail and a slightly slithering descent to Rifugio Casinei at only 1,826m. Manni looked as fresh as a mountain daisy and ready to conquer a few more mountain peaks. After a detour to a mountain waterfall it was back to Madonna di Campiglio and our hotel, the Hermitage, and goodbye to Manni, who’d probably had one of his less testing days.

To tie in with our newfound feeling of healthiness — there aren’t any posters telling you to “breathe in and taste the mountain air”, but that seems to be the general consensus — the Hermitage terms itself a “biohotel”. That means it boasts a spa, plus a swimming pool, sauna and steam room.

Tuckett, a man who used to walk five miles to Bristol each morning before breakfast would have spurned such luxuries. We just gloried in them.

Need to know

John Clarke was a guest of the Italian State Tourist Board and details of the Trentino region, which includes the Dolomites, can be found at their website www.italiantouristboard.co.uk.

Read about the life of life of Francis Fox Tuckett.

Details of the Hermitage Biohotel, Madonna di Campiglio, can be found at www.biohotelhermitage.it. Summer prices at the hotel start at 80 euros per person per day with half-board, minimum stay seven nights.

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