Sean Mackey
New member
Cortina, Italy <BR> <BR>Getting There <BR>============= <BR> <BR>Pretty much a nightmare. The day we left the NYC metro area <BR>was experiencing snow. Only and inch or two but enough to <BR>through this area into a tailspin. Our 5:30 JFK flight <BR>didn't leave until close to 9pm. This made us miss our <BR>Milan to Venice flight. After waiting for that flight, it <BR>was delayed about an hour 10 minutes prior to boarding. <BR>Then our transfer from Venice Airport to Cortina was not <BR>there. We finally called him in Cortina, where he had to <BR>drive down to get us. Central Holidays didn't notify him <BR>that our flight plans had changed. I guess they didn't have <BR>enough time since the plans changed only one month before <BR>departure. Overall, roughly 28 hours of travel time (from <BR>leaving home to arriving at the hotel). <BR> <BR>Leaving Venice airport it was raining. No problem, right? <BR>It will turn to snow by the time we get to Cortina. Nope. <BR>Rain in Cortina. Well, at Whistler/Blackcomb it rained in <BR>the village and snowed in the mountains. Perhaps that is <BR>happening here. Time to rest. <BR> <BR>Our ski group was two couples. Our abilities ranged from <BR>intermediate (PA and VT trails) to advanced. By advanced I <BR>mean myself. I feel comfortable on most groomed or bumped <BR>trails and I have been exploring the woods for the past <BR>couple of years. <BR> <BR> <BR>Sunday - Faloria/Pomedes <BR>====== <BR> <BR>At breakfast, the weather was still rain in the village, but <BR>the report states that it is snow in the mountains. After <BR>breakfast we went to the cable car to Faloria. It's a about <BR>three hundred yards down the road. At the top of this cable <BR>car we encounter visibility of about 100 feet, but the <BR>precip has changed to snow. We're just about at tree line, <BR>but the skiing is above here. The cable car ride just gets <BR>you above the cliffs between Faloria and the village. There <BR>was new, wet snow, but tough visibility. We skied down to <BR>the chair lifts and up into the fog we went. If you've ever <BR>been above treeline in dense fog, you know it's not fun. We <BR>actually managed two runs and started up for another one <BR>when we noticed the signs mentioning that the lifts were <BR>closing at noon. We had to get to the top to get to the <BR>cable car so away we went. From the top we had to follow a <BR>barricaid/fence down to a poma, and follow that to the top <BR>of the cable car. (My SU had never skied outside of VT and <BR>PA before, so I didn't tell her why there would be a fence <BR>on the mountain. She found out on tuesday and was happy I <BR>didn't tell her.) <BR> <BR>Back in town, someone at the hotel mentioned that Tofana was <BR>not above tree line, but was getting snow. We marched to <BR>the bus stop and were off to Tofana. Since the cable car at <BR>Tofana was shutdown, so we actually skied Pomedes. It <BR>took four chairlifts to get there and only the last one had <BR>snow. We could actually see the mountains over here and had <BR>a great trail down between two huge rocks. Here we skied <BR>several different trails, all with about a foot of new, wet <BR>snow. The sides of the trails were still untouched, so <BR>there was plenty of fun to be had. This was a nice chance <BR>to get used to skiing new fallen snow. Our PA and VT <BR>intermediates found some of the Italian intermediate trails <BR>challenging, but the new snow made them fun. If they had <BR>been good 'ol eastern packed powder, they wouldn't have gone <BR>near them. We called it a day around three as we didn't <BR>want to over do it on the first day and we were all soaked. <BR>It wasn't until our trip down that we realized that we had <BR>skipped lunch. We were all too interested in finding out <BR>what Cortina was all about. <BR> <BR> <BR>Monday - Col Gallena/Cinque Torre <BR>====== <BR> <BR>The idea today was to catch a bus to Paso Falzrego (sp?), <BR>ride the cable car to the top and ski down and spend the day <BR>skiing Alta Badia, and catch a bus back to Cortina at the <BR>end of the day. What we didn't know as that the cable car <BR>was closed due to avalanche danger. Sundays rain was a <BR>meter and a half of snow at the summit. From Pasa Fazrego <BR>we traversed/broke trail to col Gahdena. Only the lower <BR>lift was working, again due to avalanche danger. BUT, there <BR>was over a foot of snow at this lift. We skied about a half <BR>dozen runs at this little lift. The snow was amazing. I <BR>finally got to feel that float of skiing new powder. I <BR>think I spent one whole run just hoping up and down on my <BR>skis while taking the slope straight (it was gentle and <BR>fairly short). I found it amazing to just have them just <BR>rebound. It really enhanced the floating feeling. The <BR>others in the group prefered the groomed slope, which was <BR>fine with me. My only competition for the powder was the <BR>snow cat grooming the trail. After here, we took the trail <BR>to Cinque Torre. <BR> <BR>Cinque Torre - a detachable high speed quad, to a single <BR>chair, to a rope tow. Today, the singe chair and rope tow <BR>were closed due to avalanche danger. Plus, the top of the <BR>quad was just above tree line. Some wind and fog made the <BR>top of the quad tricky but just below there it was pure <BR>heaven. The groomed trails were such that carving turns on <BR>skis dug trenches. Anything off of the trails was knee to <BR>thigh deep. At every oportunity I would have my friends ski <BR>around the corner to and check for ledges or cliffs. If <BR>there weren't any, I'd cut the corner by skiing through the <BR>trees. After two runs I knew where to cut the corners and <BR>it was amazing. The trees were much more widely spaced than <BR>VT and the new snow allowed some confidence that was unknown <BR>before. Each corner had several lines to ski and there was <BR>no competition. What few people there, stayed on the <BR>slopes. We feasted on great groomed slopes and great powder <BR>reserves with hardly ever loosing eye contact with each <BR>other (or FRS radio contact). The lines, never more that <BR>one or two chairs, and mostly just walk on the lift. We <BR>skied until we could barely walk to the bus stop. <BR> <BR>Tuesday - Cinque Torre/Faloria <BR>======= <BR> <BR>The first sunny day. The view from the room was amazing, we <BR>could only imagine what the view in the mountains would be <BR>like. My SU opted to rest for the morning and since the <BR>other couple missed Cinque Torre due to equipment problems <BR>I headed back there to ski the morning with them. The view <BR>was amazing. Cinque Torre translates to Five Towers. These <BR>towers sit to clibers left of the top of the quad. Monday <BR>they were invisible to us, today, they loomed over us. Also <BR>we could see why the single chair was closed. Mt. xxxxxxx <BR>was just to the side of it. The chair was open today, and <BR>you could see the avalanche debree from the clearing <BR>operations. It ran down the hillside and under the chair. <BR>The lift and trail down the backside of xxxxxx was still not <BR>dug out. The single servered one trail and a lot of off <BR>piste items. Not knowing the area I didn't stray far from <BR>the trail/lift. It was at this area that I noticed a lot of <BR>AT gear. Up until now, I have only seen on person on AT <BR>gear - and that was while skiing paradise at MRG. The first <BR>ride up the quad, we could see a guy already at the top of <BR>the single, and it had yet to open. They were long gone by <BR>the time the single opened. This was by far the busiest day <BR>at Cinque Torre that we had and still, there was no one <BR>skiing off of the trail. All morning long I kept cutting <BR>the corners and never had to cross my tracks in two days. <BR> <BR>That afternoon I met my wife and we skied Faloria. This <BR>was the area that was shutdown on us on sunday when the <BR>visibility was horrible. The first thing that amazed her <BR>was the ride up the cable car. The cliffs were hidden by <BR>clouds so you couldn't see how steeply the cable car rose. <BR>We then skied down to the same lifts that we skie on Sunday <BR>but she didn't recognize them. At the top, we went and <BR>looked through the fence that we followed on sunday in the <BR>fog and she was happy that I didn't tell here what was there. <BR>The other side of the fence was essentially a cliff that <BR>fell hundreds of feet. While the fence was a great guide <BR>for us in the fog, she was happy not to know what was on the <BR>other side. The skiing that day afternoon was again, great. <BR>We skied the three main trails at Faloria and were greated <BR>to great views of some people skiing the chutes leading down <BR>to the trails. The snow on the trails was excellent packed <BR>powder. Always good enough to hold and edge but never icy. <BR> <BR> <BR>Wednesday - Kronplatz <BR>========= <BR> <BR>A member of our group went on this same trip last year and <BR>highly recommended the Kronplatz side trip. Kronplatz is a <BR>giant hill, near the Austrian border that is accessible from <BR>three sides, three different towns. This was side trip <BR>offered by our booking agent Central Holidays and it cost <BR>extra. It is mainly an intermediates mountain but it is <BR>long. The single expert trail runs 5.8 KM and the trial <BR>back to where we were parked was some 6KM. There were some <BR>interesting looking off piste areas, but I didn't get to <BR>sample them. <BR> <BR> <BR>Thursday - Morning break/Tofana <BR>======== <BR> <BR>This was suppose to be a down day by taking a trip to Venice <BR>but the trip was cancelled due to flooding. We spent the <BR>morning walking around the village admiring town and looking <BR>for souvenirs. After lunch, I decided to try and get <BR>a few run on Tofana. It takes three cable cars to get to <BR>the top of this mountain, but skiing is serviced only from <BR>cable cars one and two. There is a restaurant perched at <BR>the top of the mountain, but that cable car never opened <BR>while we were there. Skiing starts off in the RA Valles, an <BR>above tree line area with three chairs. It has about three <BR>groomed runs, and then the rest is ski where you like. Since <BR>I was on my own and not familiar with the area I stayed on <BR>the trails (and the fact that there were lots of signs <BR>about not skiing off trails due to avalanche danger). There <BR>are two trails from the RA Valles and always the option to <BR>download on the cable car. I chose the expert trail and <BR>start skiing. I didn't think the slope was steeper than <BR>what I had skied in the past, but more unnerving was the <BR>idea that if I fell, I could slide for a long time on this <BR>groomed slope. Being mostly a VT skier, I'm used to having <BR>some trees around me, and slopes that turned well before a <BR>couple of hundred yards went by. <BR> <BR> <BR>Friday - Cinque Torre/Faloria <BR>====== <BR> <BR>Friday we decided to wrap the trip up by skiing our favorite <BR>spot, Cinque Torre, ride the 12:05 bus back to town, have <BR>lunch at the top of the Faloria Cable Car and then ski <BR>Faloria in the afternoon. Again, more amazing times with <BR>still plenty of first tracks at Cinque Torre, but never a <BR>lift line. Faloria had most of the visible/close to lift <BR>off-piste stuff chopped to chowder, but then on our last run <BR>we discovered a trail down to Rio Gere that still had plenty <BR>of off-piste tree skiing. Doh!!. <BR> <BR> <BR>Notes/Observations <BR>================== <BR> <BR> - Their idea of cold: most of the week we were told by the <BR> people in town that it was going to be cold. Well, they <BR> aren't used to VT cold. Cold to them was about 25F. <BR> That or the weathermen over there are worse than ours. <BR> ;-) By Wednesday, we learned to leave most of our needed <BR> VT layers in the hotel. <BR> <BR> - No bumps/moguls: not a one. No bump trails, no bump <BR> areas not a single bump line. <BR> <BR> - Why don't they ski off piste? It seems that the general <BR> public tends to stay on the trail. At Cinque Torre and <BR> Faloria people skied the areas that were near the lifts <BR> and open, but not a sole went near the trees. And I'm <BR> talking about the near lift tree shots. Not the far <BR> away, backcountry only type of stuff.