After Wednesday’s skiing, we realized it would be more efficient to drive the 11km mountain road up to Sestriere rather than ride five lifts from Cesana.
The parking was close to the Mt. Fraiteve gondola and Chair 30 where we started our day. We judged correctly that we should head for Borgata and its #18 chair of over 2,200 vertical.
On the way we could see tracks on the opposite sunny hillside that presumably came from Mt. Fraiteve 3,000 feet above.
The upper half of chair 18 was above tree line and may have had limited visibility part of Wednesday.
View from top of 18:
There were plenty of leftovers for us.
We took 5 runs in this area, one of them diverting down the long Pattemouche piste to Pragelato. Once I diverted past the closed lifts #19 and 20 west into the bowl and trees between pistes 8 and 32. Overview pic taken later of that area from the opposite side of piste 32’s gully:
I emerged from the trees about where the picture shadow line is at far right of the trees. Only the blue part of piste 32 in the bottom of the gully was groomed. In that area were some Italian army troops training.
We see this at Mammoth occasionally because there is a winter training center near Sonora Pass.
Once we rode the slow chair 17 to get at a short section of trees under the middle of chair 18.
Around 3PM we left Borgata via chair 23. We started a down the #3 piste and noticed a track into the trees. I now knew there was a groomed run in the bottom of that gully so we went for it and were well rewarded.
We finished with a couple of cruisers on chair 28 overlooking the Olympic village from 2006.
The higher poma #29 was closed. Skiing piste #1 there is enticing sidecountry to skier’s left.
This area leads down to the road to Grangesises, easy for locals to do by road shuttle.
Total today was 18,000 vertical, 7K of still excellent second day powder. As James and I have observed, this is not an uncommon experience at even high visibility Alps resorts with an intermediate reputation. I’ve seen this before at Davos and Cervinia.
The parking was close to the Mt. Fraiteve gondola and Chair 30 where we started our day. We judged correctly that we should head for Borgata and its #18 chair of over 2,200 vertical.
On the way we could see tracks on the opposite sunny hillside that presumably came from Mt. Fraiteve 3,000 feet above.
The upper half of chair 18 was above tree line and may have had limited visibility part of Wednesday.
View from top of 18:
There were plenty of leftovers for us.
We took 5 runs in this area, one of them diverting down the long Pattemouche piste to Pragelato. Once I diverted past the closed lifts #19 and 20 west into the bowl and trees between pistes 8 and 32. Overview pic taken later of that area from the opposite side of piste 32’s gully:
I emerged from the trees about where the picture shadow line is at far right of the trees. Only the blue part of piste 32 in the bottom of the gully was groomed. In that area were some Italian army troops training.
We see this at Mammoth occasionally because there is a winter training center near Sonora Pass.
Once we rode the slow chair 17 to get at a short section of trees under the middle of chair 18.
Around 3PM we left Borgata via chair 23. We started a down the #3 piste and noticed a track into the trees. I now knew there was a groomed run in the bottom of that gully so we went for it and were well rewarded.
We finished with a couple of cruisers on chair 28 overlooking the Olympic village from 2006.
The higher poma #29 was closed. Skiing piste #1 there is enticing sidecountry to skier’s left.
This area leads down to the road to Grangesises, easy for locals to do by road shuttle.
Total today was 18,000 vertical, 7K of still excellent second day powder. As James and I have observed, this is not an uncommon experience at even high visibility Alps resorts with an intermediate reputation. I’ve seen this before at Davos and Cervinia.
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