J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

A bit of GoPro from the Sasslong piste:

A few more photos:

Day 5 - Thursday, we decided to tackle the long journey over to the Lagazuoi ski tour. According to Google maps, the base of the cable car was 47km from our hotel by road :shock: . The journey over was lovely though many of the slopes were completely brown with only a white slick for the piste. Despite this, the pistes were in great shape

. Unfortunately, on the last run down to the shuttle up to the base of the cable car, my daughter had a minor fall. She subsequently went into shock and we had a lengthy delay at the top of the cable car as the medics fed her sugar to get her over it. Thankfully, a delayed lunch, she was able to ski on. The long "Hidden Valley" run down was actually a bit of a disappointment. Somewhat icy in places and not helped by being a narrow track for long stretches. Having said that the views were spectacular. When you get to the bottom, there is a long flat section. They have horse drawn tows to get you past this section. Quite a novelty but takes a while to "load up" and get going :D .

Signposting to get there and get back was very poor. I had downloaded a list of lifts that I needed to take which helped but we still managed to take a wrong turn on the way back. This combined with my daughter's earlier wobble meant that we were not able to make it all the way back to our hotel :evil: . A couple of beers were had in Arabba before an expensive taxi ride home.

Day 6 Friday - the weather was closing in with some fog up high and snow forecast so we stayed in our own valley - basically skiing in the Col Rodella and Belvedere areas. Nice long runs down to the valley from either side. given the conditions, we indulged in a long lunch in Rifugio Frederick August to the side of Col Rodella. It has a giant statue of a bull on the way down to it and its own short little drag to get you back on the slopes. The food was excellent though not cheap.

Day 7 Saturday. Bright sunshine again and we headed over towards Selva and down the wonderful Sasslong piste. It was in great shape and very quiet so high speeds were the order of the day :mrgreen: . Much fun had. We then took the funicular up to the Col Raiser side. After lunch at the top and a couple of runs up there we headed down the aptly named La Longia - a 10km long red into Ortesei. Its a wonderful run. A toss up between the Sasslong and it for my favourite run of the week, though Alpha and Bravo above Monte Pana are firm friends as well -) .

Headed down into Canazei after skiing for the Ireland v France rugby match. Watched it in the bar in the Dolomiti Hotel. Had expected a bit of a crowd but we were the only group watching. Dave Mac had said he might get in but unfortunately, I didn't get to meet him. Still, a good Irish victory was most welcome :thumbup: .

Day 8 - Sunday. We had time for a few hours skiing before heading to the airport for a late flight. Didn't venture too far but still made it over to Monte Pana for a last go at the Alpha/Bravo slopes. Managed about 4 hours skiing before we had to leave :( .

After a quick shower and change headed off. The traffic on the way to Bergamo was very heavy but kept moving so the journey took us a little longer than expected but within our contingency :thumbup:

Overall a fantastic trip and my love affair with the Dolomites deepens. The area is simply vast and the sense of touring that you can have is wonderful. Despite little or no snow for ages, the pistes were in super condition while the lift infrastructure is generally excellent. Add in good quality food and drink at very reasonable prices and lovely people, there is not much to dislike :mrgreen:

Most unusually, we did not meet another Irish person on the entire trip. The hotel was mostly filled with Italians with a few Germans, Swedes and a family from the Czech Republic. Not a lot of Brits about - a stronger presence in the Arabba and Alpe de Suisi areas. It seems fairly popular with the Swedes with busloads of them driving all the way :shock: .


One of the Horse tows returning to pick up more customers!


View from top of Lagazoui at 2800m


Another view from top of Lagazoui at 2800m.

bedrock barney wrote:Thanks for the latest replies peeps.

3V may not happen now this season after all. We have Val d'Isere lined up for 17th Dec and I think we would like to get to Austria if possible Feb half term. If it ends up being Easter, I may go to Are, Sweden again. 2nd trip decisions to be made after Christmas...

Met a group of Swedes in our hotel in the Dolomites - they have been coming there for years. Curiously, none of them had ever been to Are or the other northern Swedish resorts. They claimed that it was as quick flying to the Alps as getting to the North :shock:

Interesting post. Unfortunately, I think it would require very detailed and complex research to get at the real incidence of injuries and their causes :( . I suspect that the binding settings play a relatively small part in the story - it seems improbable that ski hire shops have changed their practices materially over the years so it is hard to see how bindings issues could have caused a appreciable change in injury stats.

If anything, my own anecdotal evidence would be of less, not more, injuries ;) . It seems rare these days to see returning skiers in casts, etc., on the return flights. However, this does not mean that there are less people being carted off the mountain. IMHO, the biggest change in recent years is the increased defensiveness of first responders - if there is the slightest chance of a bang to the head or a person going into shock, they will tend to call for the stretcher or helicopter. The more cynical might suggest that there is an increased inclination to call in the helicopters for relatively minor injuries to ensure that the helicopter service is maintained (with their costs covered by our insurance :evil: )

Of course, there are a myriad range of other factors coming into play - ones that strike me as being particularly relevant include increased use of helmets encouraging people to take more risk, better prepared pistes allowing much faster (and often reckless) skiing, greater numbers of people skiing, better ski technology resulting in faster skiing, increased use of snow making technology (not sure about this one but it seems to me that the manmade snow tends to turn to ice more so than natural snow) :thumbup: .

Planning to get a few hours in on Sunday am but will not stray too far from our own valley. Don't want to risk any missed connections!
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I am actually not leaving until Sunday so can watch the match in comfort. Only problem is that we are staying up the mountain and I am the driver so will not be able to drink during game . If you are in Domomiti Saturday evening, we might say hello

Day 3 , we headed over to the Monte Pana area. It's a small area but lovely and quiet and a few seriously good runs - the red Bravo and black Alpha are super. With few people about and great snow, a chance to let the skis fly.

Day 4 awoke to another glorious day. Decided to head over to st Cristina area but ended up taking bus to Alpe di Suisi instead. A thought it was a standard ski bus connection and so was not ready for a rough journey across mountain tracks - definitely an interesting experience. Lovely few hours over there. Skiing was generally fairly easy and place had a very relaxed vibe. I think people go there to relax rather than push themselves. Lovely lunch in one of the mountain restos with live band playing. Even got them to do Galway Girl.

Not much fresh snow about and surrounding areas quite brown but piste holding up really well for great skiing.


This is a view from Monte Pana


I think this is a view of the piste down from Piz Sella with the Funpark to the side.


View out my hotel window :mrgreen:


Every day feels like a journey rather than the usual up down you get in some resorts. It really is a great area