We flew into Venice on Saturday, 14th arriving at about 6pm. After collecting bags and our hire car (with winter tyres secured with considerable difficulty), we headed to the resort. After a short break along the road for food, we headed up towards the San Pelegrino pass in poor weather. As we climbed, the rain turned to snow and the journey became increasingly interesting :shock: . Anyway, taking it very easy, we eventually made it to our hotel in Vigo without incident.
Sunday morning involved the usual faffing, getting sorted out with lift passes, ski hire, etc. It was about 11am before we got up the local mountain above Vigo. It is a very small area with only a limited number of runs but a few nice ones and conditions were very good. Runs included the Black named after Alberto Tomba who practiced here regularly in his heyday, and the long Thoni run back down to resort. Not much variety but a very pleasant and gentle way to find our ski legs.
On Monday, we headed down to Campitello to access the main Sella Ronda area. Unfortunately, we were a little slow getting out the door and ran into a long line for the cable car up the hill :evil:. Once we got up, the skiing was great in glorious sunshine - lunch was eaten outdoors in shirt sleeves :wink:. We headed clockwise over towards San Christina and Monte Pana. While there were a good few people on the main Sella routes, once you got off the main connections, the slopes tended to be very quite. A highlight of the day was the Sasslong World Cup run down into San Christina in Val Gardena a beautiful long Black in super condition. Unfortunately, we also ran into a bit of a queue to download into Campitello again at the end of the day:twisted:. The day was also marred by an injury to one of our party - an 18 yo girl who was a complete beginner learning to snowboard in ski school. It turned out that she had broken her wrist.
On Tuesday, we drove up to Pian de Frataces a carpark up the hill with direct access to 2 gondolas. This bypassed the long queues in the valley :lol: . We spent most of the morning skiing around the Belvedere area on hard packed but beautiful slopes - perfect for some highspeed cruising. Later on, once the queue for the link lift over the Passo Pordoi had died down, we headed over to Arabba and enjoyed the more challenging skiing in that valley before heading home. As usual, the top section at Porta Vescovo was not terribly pleasant, with too many people out of their depth on this run. Once past that short section, it was fine. Another great day :lol: .
Wednesday we again drove up the mountain and bypassed the queues. Skied over to San Cristina and went up the other side in the Funicular to Seceda and skied down the fabulous red La Longia piste -over 10km long. Did the Sasslong a couple of times again. Another super day 8) .
On Thursday, we headed over to San Pelegrino in the morning. Its a lovely area and was virtually deserted :wink: . There are a good selection of runs in this area including the super runs down to the cable car which are graded as red but are pretty steep. We had a lovely morning here before heading back to the Buffaure area in the afternoon. We didn't have too much time here and just did a couple of runs on the top before coming down the lovely long Red Panorama piste down to the valley.
On Friday, we effectively reversed the previous day's itinery covering the Buffaure area in the morning and heading over to San Pelegrino in the pm. Before heading over, we skied down the long Black into Alba. A wonderful run in great condition and virtually deserted. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a queue for the cablecar back up and we lost about 25 minutes :evil:. Back in Pelegrino, we were enjoying the great skiing on quiet slopes and then a wonderful lunch in Baita Dies Bis (I think). However, again disaster struck. One of the young lads with us had gone off to do a bit of boarding and took a bad tumble. Another blood wagon off the mountain and to make matters worse they took him down the "wrong side" to Agordo, a long way from our hotel (close to an hour's drive over the mountains). He broke his collar bone and may need surgery :cry:.
On Saturday, we headed back to Frataces. It was much quieter so we planned on completing the full Sella Ronda. We made great progress over as far as Selva Gardena when disaster struck again :x . Another one of our party took a tumble and fell heavily on her shoulder. It was immediately clear that she would not be able to ski on so I retraced our steps as quickley as possible to get the car and then drove across the mountain road over the Sella pass and brought her back to the medical centre nearest us. Did manage to get out for a few runs later in the afternoon but by now the weather was closing in and we just repeated the two valley runs back to Frataces from Belvedere and Rotello sides a couple of times. While the visibility restricted us quite a bit, the slopes were still in fantastic condition and the runs were very enjoyable.
Food was excellent pretty much everywhere we went and generally very reasonable - often no more than €10 per head to cover a main course, water and coffees. The Baita Dies Bis in Pelegrino/Falcade was probably a stand out for lunch. My OH and myself treated ourselves to a posh meal one night in the L Chimpl restaurant near Vigo. It has a Michilin Star and was outstanding. Not cheap but very good value for the quality of food.
Apres ski was not terribly exciting (as usual in Italy) but that was fine. The Alpen Sports Bar in Vigo was very pleasant for a post-skiing pint and they served lovely snacks with the beer. Visited the Pavone disco bar underneath our hotel a few times. It was generally very quiet but run by two lovely ladies who extending a pleasant welcome.
Overall, I am more than ever convinced that the Dolomites is probably the best area anywhere for strong intermediates. The area offers a wonderful sense of touring around the mountains that you rarely experience elsewhere. Pisting is second to none (the Italian's don't like moguls) and infrastructure is modern and efficient. Morning access from Campitello and Canazei was definitely a problem during half term but with a car it was easy to bypass these bottlenecks. A new lift up from Alba planned for next season might help. Food and drink is generally excellent and inexpensive. I can highly recommend the area but having a car is a definite bonus and allows you to bypass the queues and also to explore some of the outlying satellite areas :wink: .
With 3 broken bones, this was the worst trip in my 20 years of skiing for injuries. There was no particular reason for this level of injuries as conditions were good. I think it was just one of those things and perhaps a reminder that skiing is a risky activity :roll: . Having said that, I don't think the other family who suffered all the significant injuries will travel on Friday, the 13th ever again :shock: .
I'll try to figure out photos again and put some up :oops:
