Val Gardena December 2009 Report

Something I banged out for somebody who is booked into St Ulrich\Ortisei in Feburary. He suggested it may be worth putting up here. I sure wish somebody had done something like this prior to me going...
Just my opinion from an older bloke with family.


Report begins
The Bad News First
1. We had to come home.
2. We spent a lot of money.
3. We had a nightmare drive from Belgium, -20c temperatures made for treacherous conditions.
4. Cuz i was lumbered with wife and kid and I am a late starter (skied first time at 41 2 years ago) and therefore a fairly crap skier I didn't get to cover nearly as much territory as I wanted (eg all of Seceda, Col Raiser, Sella Ronda, Cortina etc).

The Good News
We had an absolute ball. Could have stayed there for months, if not forever. I have been doing nothing but look at the webcams since I got back.


Snow
Absolutely perfect. Pretty much a powderfest. Lots of fresh snow when we arrived. We then had a couple of overnight dustings and one night we had a massive dump (40cms). This caused avalanche problems in some areas and 6 people were killed (2 climbers and 4 rescuers) just up the road toward Canazei but no problem in our area. Strangely, even though there was TONS of snow they still ran the snow makers during the day.
The grooming was first rate. Perfect, perfect slopes. No sign of moguls at end of the day.

Weather
Cold but overall excellent. 3 days with lots of sun. 1 day cloudy with some rain. However, due to the great cover the snow held up well against it. Got a little slushy in parts but the snow was good the next day after a dump overnight. The other days were cloudy but OK. No wind at all, all week.


The Views
The whole Dolomite area is amazing. The villages and houses are very picturesque and the view to the east towards Saslong and Sella Ronda is incredible. It must be a blast to ski up there.

Lifts
The two gondolas that go to Seiser Alm are pretty brill we reckon. It is about a 8 minute ride up to the +2000m level from Ortisei. There is another Gondola (exact same type) up to the other side of Seiser Alm that leaves from the other side of the plateau. To get to it you can drive around to Sciliar (15 minute drive with free parking). The ride up is longer (15 minutes I guess). Views great from both lifts, but perspex scratched from skis.
Lots of quads and other chairs throughout the place. Some have shields but they all do the job and ran faultlessly the whole time. They were well manned too - the guys were very helpful with kids etc.

Skipass
In St Ulrich\Ortisei there is only one place where you can buy your pass. It is bang in the middle of town to the right (as you look UP the hill) of the escalators that run up to the Seceda lift (and Hubertus). Closes for lunch.

Slopes
All comments mainly based on the Seiser Alm\Alpe di Suisi ski area. This is a high plateau to the south of the Val Gardena and is accessed via the Mont Seuc\Alpe di Suisi\Seiser Alm gondola (red cars) which will be plainly visible when looking toward the South from the village.
Seiser Alm is worth skiing just for the views. In summer it is rolling pastures with barns and huts scattered throughout. You can get the Ortisei gondola up and ski across whole plateau (if you are better than a beginner). Wide, cruisy, what I call longish (2.5km) runs that are perfect for intermediates. There are a couple of hairier steep ones but we didn't do them. There are lots of real good bunny slopes for absolute beginners.
Ortisei has a couple of bunny slopes but they are mainly used by the kids. Most courses\lessons are up on the Seiser plateau.

Seceda. Hard packed snow. I only did the Furnes->Ortisei run. Pretty tough for a latecomer\newbie like me. It is a tight winding affair that is similar to a Indy Car Circuit. The whole run is bordered by rocks, trees and gullies. There are nets to catch people who fly of the course, padding around a lot of boulders etc but still lots of things to hit if you get it completely wrong. I did it in the afternoon when I was knackered so I tiptoed around. Lots of the good skiers were flying through there and having a blast. There are a couple of huts you can stop and have a drink etc. They were going off and the atmosphere was fantastic.


Roads.
Very good, considering the traffic (snow ploughs, trunks etc) and weather conditions. If you are driving there the tolls add up. One way - I think it was 24EU (we drove the length of the country) plus 8 for a vignette in Austria; about 8Eu in Italy; and the French stung us about 8eu to use the section of French road we used.


Locals and Village. Top people. The local Ladins speak 3 languages (Ladin, German, Italian) and a lot of them speak very good English too. Most were very helpful and the service in town was top notch. Everything spotlessly clean and well organised - the locals are not Italian. Everybody very polite and no anti-social behaviour to be seen.


Instructors. We had private lessons with 2 different instructors, both from Ortisei. The first one was a brilliant lady who managed to stop my 9yo girl from being a sook. 2nd was a young local lad who was great. Both spoke very good English. Ski rental places everwhere and cheaper than France.

Food
Food was fantastic. Pretty reasonable pricing (cheaper than Belgium - where we live) especially considering it is a largish resort. We were too knackered to drink a lot but beer was reasonably priced I thought. The coffee was simply brilliant - real cappucinos like back home in Oz. Wife and daughter drank me outta house and home with the hot chocolates.

Crowds
This place is the world's best kept ski secret. No crowds to speak of. I suspect that seeing it is such a huge area, it can absorb a lot of skiers before the lifts\pistes get busy. Got up early and had Seiser Alm to ourselves until 10ish. Then very light crowds. That said the locals said it will get much busier in the New Year. But I reckon Feb would be perfect.
90% would be German\Austrian\Italian or Dutch. No Frogs and very few Brits or Yanks.


Snowboarders
Sorry if I offend you, but a lot of these plonkers give the few good ones a bad name. Not too many and most of them weren't too dangerous. One nuffy lost his board which went down the piste like an unguided missile but luckily it missed everybody. A friend of ours was cleaned up by one at another resort......

Accomodation
We stayed at Hotel Grones. Great, not that cheap, but you get what you pay for. Tons and tons of hotels around and from I gather they are all pretty good. Hotel grones is in a great position it is about a 100m walk to the escalators that take you up to the Seceda gondola. It is about a 500 metre walk to the Seiser Alm gondola. We took soft option and used Hotel Shuttle service to drop us off and pick us up.

There is a SPAR supermarket down near the stream that runs along the valley floor. Should be more than sufficient but Bozen (40 minute drive) has everything you should ever need. There are lots of shops in the area.

Apres Ski
Too old and too tired to comment. Couldn't stay awake after 9.00pm eek!

If you get the chance and have an interest; go to Bozen and see Otzi. He is a local who died in the area 5000 years ago and was preserved in the ice. Even my daughter thought it was brill.

I don't understand why Val Gardena\Dolomites isn't a more well known ski area. For families and average good skiers it is bliss. If you are thinking about it, then I say do it. I am selling a kidney so we can go back to the Dolomites in Feb.

If you are interested i add some ski porn to this thread so you can see I am not making it up.

geno68 wrote:If you are interested i add some ski porn to this thread so you can see I am not making it up.

Yes please! 8) Great write-up - thank you.

Brilliant write up and well laid out - covers just about everything we need to know.

Can we have some more resorts in the same style/format please ?

Aitch

OK - here we go. Haven't got much of the pistes cuz I was busy skiing. Wife took these.

Piste grooming was incredibly good. In the background you can just see a snow cannon running even though we had just had a 40cm dump on a meter base and it was -5.


Seiser Alm\Suisi scenery


Seiser Alm\Suisi at 10:00am


Seiser Alm\Suisi bunnies (not me\us!)


Ortisei\St Ulrich morning


Seiser Alm\Suisi snow cover


Ortisei\St Ulrich at night


Lots of purty scenery everywhere like this



I am getting all aroused.....

:D :P :lol:

geno68, I cannot thank you enough for this report. I have been trying to twist the arms of my brother and other ski mates to do an extra trip this year to Val Gardena, and this report is going to be duly shoved under their noses on a regular basis :twisted:

I think the only issue I am going to have with them, is an economic one :(

Far Queue,
One thing I should say, is that it may not be the best place in the world for those who want to ski off piste, off the sides of cliffs etc. However, this comment is based on from what I gather from what other people say and not based any personal knowledge. That said I saw tons of trails that had been blazed off-piste.
Also, bear in mind that conditions may have been exceptionally good for that region at that time as Italy had been getting more snow than anywhere in Europe when we went. However, there is a lot of piste above 2000 metres and there are snow cannons everywhere so I gather that even if natural snowfall (not the case this winter thus far) is scarce they work their arses off with the snow cannons.
Economic issue. If you go off peak (e.g out of school holidays etc) then I reckon it is cheap as chips and you can not get better value for money skiing anywhere in the world. You will have tons of quality skiing, great food, with no crowds and a good chance of plenty of sun.

PS - a friend of ours went to Austria at the same time and there was bugger all snow.

Thanks very much for an excellent report.

Looks like an excellent spot and may be just the place for next year.

Thanks again :D

Thanks very much for that report. It was most interesting.

Val Gardena must be somewhere near Obergurgl, because I know the Otzi man was found near Obergurgl, frozen in a glacier, and there was a big argument whether he was found in Italy or Austria because no-one seemed to be too sure where the border was, exactly, but the Italians won the argument in the end, and they have him.

Ally