J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Well, whilst we're discussing my navigational mistakes, I thought I'd say something about the pistes and the piste map and where I got confused - so that anyone planning on going there in the future doesn't make the same mistakes as me!

The gondola in Madonna di Campiglio that goes up to the highest point in the ski area (Passo Groste) is in 2 sections - Groste 1 Express and Groste 2 Express marked as 45 and 46 on the piste map (it stops but you can stay in it right to the top). The first section ends at the Boch restaurant and when I went up it the first time it didn't continue upwards because of the high avalanche risk. Looking at the piste map I thought we wouldn't be able to get onto piste number 60 and across to Monte Spinale via the Boch Express chairlift - but in fact you can - because it looks uphill on the map (it doesn't have directional arrows on the piste map).

And I thought the Pinzolo-Campiglio Express actually stopped so you had to get out after the first section, because it does a 45 degree bend - but it doesn't. You can stay in it all the way to the ski area at Pinzolo, although as I said before, it does take 22 minutes to get there!

When you're at the top of Monte Spolverino, in the Folgarida sector, and you want to get to Madonna di Campigliio, or Marilleva, you have to go down 7 to where the Solander restaurant is and the gondola comes up from Daolasa, and then turn left (still on piste 7 apparently) ski down a steep bit and at the bottom of it you can either branch left for the chair back to the top of Monte Spolverino and the way back to Folgarida, or go right for the chair to Monte Vigo and Madonna di Campiglio and Marilleva.

And on the way back from Monte Vigo towards Folgarida, you can take either the red 9 or 12 but you always end up back going down the steep bit on blue 7 to where the Folgarida chairlift is on the left and the Madonna one is on the right. So as far as I know you can't get back without going on the small Folgarida chairlift, number 23 on the piste map.

As I said before, piste 66 coming down from Passo Groste has a nasty flat section and ends up in a car park by the Groste gondola (although you can take the chairlift 39 followed by 40 up to Monte Spinale before you get to the car park). We were rather confused about this, because at the bottom the signs disappeared and the piste went upwards so you had to either take your skis off or walk in a herring bone. If you kept straight on at the last bit you ended up in the car park, but other skiers seemed to be turning to the left and walking up a bit of piste that was even steeper but which I discovered afterwards joins the blue 78 by the bridge and avoids the car park.

Going from the Folgarida side to the far side of the valley in Madonna (where Monte Spinale and Passo Groste are), there's a bridge you can ski over. But coming back they have a moving carpet! And I only managed to get from one side to the other over this bridge but there's also a route under the bridge somewhere, because the others found it, and a route between the Groste gondola and the Spinale Express gondola. I didn't want to risk looking for it and end up walking up a hill or something (or going the wrong way and climbing over a bank back onto the piste, like I did at the start of the week!). There are several strange blue pistes through Madonna di Campiglio itself, which I didn't bother investigating because we managed to get where we wanted to without using them.

To ski the last bit home, from the Malghet Aut where the ski schools and restaurants are and where the first gondola takes you to in the morning, you can either bear right and ski down the blue 2, or keep straight on and go down the black 1. The blue got really chopped up at the top by the end of the day and tended to have several casualties on it, but further down it was fine and then it has a turning to the right for those going to Upper Folgarida but you have to keep left for Lower Folgarida. The black wasn't too difficult but it is fairly steep so if you do it without stopping you're likely to get leg-ache!

Tony_H wrote:
Ally, from what I know of you and many of your group, mayrhofen is definitely not the place for you,

Tony - apart from the queues, what else is wrong with Mayrhofen which you think would make it unsuitable for the J2Ski group holiday?

Yes - it makes me wonder what I should be mugging up now on YouTube for our next ski holiday ... ;)

Hey - I found a naked one of those mini-snow cannons on the video! Or at least I suppose that's what it is - it looks rather like a toadstool ...

And I always thought the snow cannons have yellow/orange jackets around them in case someone skies/snowboards into them. I didn't think they could also be for insulation ...

PistePaul wrote:Very Nice Ally, those yellow bags are actually mini snow cannons - they are the insulation jackets - I went over to take a look at one on an earlier piste. Never seen these before - but they must think they need them to stop the nozzles getting iced over!!

I'm sure eventually, you'll twig I changed from Sinbad14 to Pistepaul - but didnt have to go through some wierd initiation!!

Oh - thanks PistePaul - I will have to remember you've changed your J2Ski name! Maybe I should go back and edit my posts to Sinbad14/cameraman/PistePaul ...

I had wondered if those yellow bags were to do with snow cannons - but they look so small! OK - well if those were down the right hand side of the unpisted piste, then we definitely shouldn't have turned right past the one on that junction! So maybe we were really off-piste?

Thanks very much for letting us know about the Penken queues. We had been considering Mayrhofen for the J2Ski group holiday, but the thought of those queues put us off!

And I'm glad you had a good holiday in spite of the queues :)

At the top of the steep last section of the piste there's a flat section like a shelf, and a sort of roadway, or piste. I think that's where all the people in this YouTube video of the Spinale Direttissima came from, and it would explain why the last section is like a proper piste.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0aWrSnsUUU

The Go Pro video ends then, but I can remember what happened after that.

We came out of the low cloud and we could see perfectly, and we were at the top of a very steep piste, with the gondola station at the bottom. I could see Simon and Sinbad14 ski-ing below me, so I knew they were OK. But I waited for quite some time for the other 3, becoming increasingly worried ... :(

Eventually, I decided to ski down to the bottom and re-join Simon and Sinbad14, and as I said at the beginning, I didn't even notice how steep the slope was! I was just so pleased to be back on a real piste, and I was worrying about the other 3.

When I got to the bottom I tried ringing CatP and Billip1 - but they didn't answer! I should have tried ringing Davidsa2 as well, but for some daft reason I didn't think of that. I had everyone's mobile number on my phone, and I'd made sure that Davidsa2 and the other 2 had my number. I wondered if they were out of signal, and I was really hoping they were together and OK - but of course I didn't know :(

The last time I'd seen everyone together had been where my ski came off. I discussed it with Simon and Sinbad14 and I decided to go to the lift station and ask the woman at the till how long we should wait before asking the rescue people to go and search for them. She found it very hard to believe that we'd skied down black 70! She tried to tell me we'd been down the much easier 74 (which we'd done before) but I insisted we'd been down 70!

And I also told her that I suspected we'd been off-piste because of the poor signposting, and that they needed to sort out the signs. We decided to wait another 10 minutes, before activating the rescue people, and very luckily, before the 10 minutes was up, I heard a shout from the other 2 and I rushed over to the bottom of the piste and looked up - to see someone with a yellow jacket looking very like CatP up at the top of the piste :) :) :)

So I told the lady at the till that I thought we were OK now, but I'd come back if there was still a problem. And shortly afterwards the other 2 appeared - and I was so pleased that everyone was safe :)

Apparently Billip1 had had a nasty fall flat on his face in the deep powder and it had taken CatP ages to get him back up and ski-ing again. She says she knew how to do it because she'd seen it on YouTube!!!

We had to ski straight home after that, because we'd lost so much time, but once we'd gone up all the lifts we stopped for a much needed drink at the Monte Spolverino mountain restaurant :)

That was the first time all holiday that we made 3 stops in mountain restaurants. And I was so tired, because of the stress of worrying about the 3 who had been lost, that I had a little sit down myself on the fairly easy (albeit rather choppy and lumpy) red piste on the way back :(

But it was a straightforward overbalance and I got up again fast enough, with no damage done :)

The others all said how much they enjoyed our little off-piste trip, and for CatP it was the highlight of her holiday! But what ruined it for me was worrying about the other 3. They said they had their phones on silent, which is why they hadn't heard me ringing them, and they were so busy coping with Billip1's predicament, that none of them thought of phoning me to let me know they were OK.

Next holiday I will make sure that everyone has their mobile on full volume when we're ski-ing something difficult like that piste!

I was also very glad I'd bought travel insurance which covers ski-ing off-piste without a guide. I hadn't intended to go off-piste, but this story just shows how it's possible to go off-piste without intending to! And in fact, I still don't know if we were technically off-piste, or if the whole area there is like an itinerary route.

On my last day, Sunday, I met some Italian expert skiers, and they said that piste is the hardest in the whole ski area, and they ski off-piste there.