J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

Are you here at the moment Dave? Might see you at Dolomitic on Saturday

Arrived in Val di Fassa on Saturday afternoon and sorted out skis and lift passes. Sunday morning headed to San Pelligrino area. Not much recent snow but pistes were in excellent condition throughout the day. Great day skiing with virtually no queues and relatively quiet slopes.

Today we headed over to Arabba and from there up to the top of the Marmolada. It's a bit of a palaver getting up requiring 3 cable cars. Thankfully, the 2nd and 3rd are coordinated so only one queue. Views from top were spectacular. Very long red off the top. Probably on the dark side of red. Fairly hard packed in places but a great ski. We had along journey home involving several lifts and the nasty stretch of the top of Portovescovo but thankfully it was not too busy when we came down so a bit of room to work with. Some bare or mogully bits on the way home so tricky in places but overall snow is great. A long day but a wonderful sense of going on a journey rather than just up and down.

Not sure of plans for tomorrow- but definitely more skiing. Here are a few photos from today.

This is the view from the top of the Marmolada @ 3250m

View over to Sella Group from the Marmolada

Heading to Canazei next week and will be there for Saturday, 25th when Ireland play France in the 6-Nations. Anybody know of a bar that is likely to be showing the match?

I really cannot believe that people are getting so exercised about this :roll: .

The reality is that forecasts of mountain weather are notoriously unreliable :x . To make matters more complicated, practically every ski resort claims that it has a special micro climate that means that they get extra snow :shock: . Expecting snow fall forecasts for a particular resort to be near perfectly accurate is completely unreasonable :roll: . The best you can hope for is a reasonable level of accuracy as to conditions over a maximum period of about 3 days (or occasionally a bit longer for settled fine weather). Even then, the best I ever expect is an indication of low, medium or high snowfalls -) .

If any of the sites issuing forecasts are to be faulted in any respect, it is in their folly of publishing specific forecasts down to the nearest centimetre and often for as long as 14 days. I know people crave this type of information but it needs to be highly qualified, even more so given the level of reliability apparently expected/demanded by some people.

Of course, none of this stops any of us from reviewing multiple sites weeks in advance and obviously only believing the one that forecasts the most snow :mrgreen: . We also see nothing wrong in shifting our allegiances between different sites to allow us pin our hopes on the next big dump :mrgreen:

Skied for a morning not realizing that the backside of my very cheap and nasty onesie had split after a fall and the padding was escaping as I skied down the hill :oops: :oops: :oops:. The rest of my ski class thought it was hilarious but said nothing - I only realized it when I sat down at lunchtime and noticed that my rear end felt colder than it should have done :evil:

The last time I was in the Dolomites, I flew into Venice and hired a car. In fairness to the woman at the carhire desk, she did advise me that the diesel was at risk of freezing as the local (Venice) diesel did not have the necessary additive. Her advice was pretty simple - fill it up when you arrive at resort and this should be enough :wink: . She did mention that you could buy additives but didn't think that this would be necessary. It is about 200kms so the tank was probably half empty when we got to our destination. I did not have any problems after that but if I recall the temperatures were not too extreme - also used the car quite a lot while there so that might have helped as well.

Do you really need to do this everyday? Most decent ski accommodation now has heated racks for boots which will dry them out thoroughly overnight :shock:.

Our accommodation last year in Val Thoren did have them but annoyingly the heat was turned off at some point in the evening :evil:. While the boots would dry out, this meant that they were cold in the morning but more importantly stiff as hell - a quick boost of the heating system in the morning would have made for much more comfortable fitting first thing :wink: .

If there is no heating in the ski room, then just take them up to your room - they should dry out nicely overnight :mrgreen: .

mark01walker wrote:I was told by a local that at least one of the the red runs on the circuit is is actually a black, but is classed as a red simply in order to attract tourists. I am a confident intermediate skier, and confess that I find several of the runs (again particularly at the top) quite challenging, especially given the amount of traffic. I'm off to the Dolomites again in March (it is one of my favourite places to ski), but will avoid the circuit as there are much more pleasant days out in my opinion.

Mark
I wouldn't disagree with your general assessment but there is definitely a sense of achievement to be got from completing the circuit, as well as the sense of having gone on a tour instead of the usual up/down sequence that we follow in most ski resorts. The SR in my view is best regarded as a highway to get you to another part of this fantastic ski domain.

I am guessing that the local commenting about the red that is really is a black is probably referring to the top section of the run at Portavescovo. The top section is quite steep and really quite tricky with lots of people struggling on it. If you read Faye-c's recent report on Arabba you will see that a new lift now enables people to bypass this section which will be a welcome relief for many skiers :wink: