TR Dolomites 17-25 March

[horizon]

Day 1: Midnight maggots. The invasion of the red Salomon bags. Driving etiquette in Italy

Sleeping over at snowball’s house before a 6.30 am flight. (snowball is a snowHeads poster). I arrive after everyone has gone to bed. The Moroccan chicken that snowball left for me in the oven is excellent, at least until I powder it with sugar instead of salt. Snowball’s bathroom walls are covered in a printout of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. I feel lightheaded after two paragraphs and go to bed.

Wake-up at 3.30. I mumble something in response to snowball’s good morning. Someone in the kitchen says ‘you must be horizon’. Hey, there’s another maggot on this trip! Turns out to be Dodger. The fourth in the group is Andrew, whom I know from last year. All of us plus skis pile in my Ford saloon.

At Stansted airport, a fifth group member, John, calls us. Someone picked his red Salomon ski bag, with boots, from the courtesy bus. He is left holding an identical bag with 65-mm waist skis. He is less than happy. snowball has a similar bag and we spot a couple others, but not the culprits. After half an hour, we hold a wake for John’s boots. Amazingly, the ground services staff find them somewhere in the innards of the airport.

Flying across the Alps – they are huge, it looks like another hundred resorts could be built there (sorry no pics, camera wasn’t handy).

A minivan is waiting for us at Venice. The driver is wearing sunglasses and looking very Italian. He’s also driving in a very Italian way. If he came any closer to the car in front, he’d have to physically push it. Off the motorway, things are getting even more interesting. He overtakes in blind corners and in front of incoming cars, forcing them halfway off the road. My English colleagues are holding on to various bits of the van. Having been road-baptised in Romania, I take things somewhat more philosophically. This might turn out to be the most dangerous part of an 8-day backcountry holiday.

We warm up in the afternoon and check out some trees and an interesting, almost untracked valley (well it was untracked until we found it!):


Here’s a photo of the Arabba skiing area:


In the evening, the sixth group member, Lawrence, joins us. He is half Australian, lives in Luxembourg, has a German wife and is generally a model global citizen. Snowball and I get a tiny loft room for the first evening only. This would be cool for lovers but the two of us aren’t that intimate. Still, we’re only going to sleep there for a night.

Day two: the loneliness of the offpiste skier in Italy – Dodger supplies drugs - snowball gets worried late at night

We get out in Arabba again. The Italians, even those who ski pretty well, are keeping to the pistes, except for one wide gulley which is roped off but icy and mogulled after everyone skied it. You can’t even rent wide skis. It’s been a week or more since the last snow and there is plenty of untouched to be had without any hiking. I like Italians. We head towards what we now call ‘our valley’ and make a few new tracks. The snow is still holding very well. Then we traverse high and find some yummy tree skiing. Spot snowball getting up close and personal with some young trees (John, in yellow, is not impressed).


And this is me heading towards a small gulley:


My legs are already tired in the evening so I ask if anyone has aspirin. This is supposed to help recovery. No one does, but Dodger produces some double-strength Ibuprofen. I’m not sure this is as useful but it’s not going to hurt so I gobble up a pill. Dodger thinks I’m addicted to drugs.

Snowball and I get the new, bigger room. In the middle of the night I wake up, try to go to the bathroom and there’s a big piece of something in my way. WTF? I feel my way around the piece of something, which suddenly wakes up and says ‘What’s going on?’ I realise that in the new room my bed is not next to the bathroom. I explain this. I think of blaming the incident on too much ibuprofen but I’m not sure this will fly. Snowball is afraid I was trying to sexually molest him. He goes back to bed but I’m not sure whether he’s sleeping or keeping an eye on me. The next day, when I mention the incident over breakfast, he laughs nervously.

[bcrider]

Nice TR.

I like the view on this one.

[horizon]

Day three: the art of discussion with Italian ski patrol – samurai bootfitting – a suspect lack of Sunday plumbers

We go to a different area. At the top there’s a permanent-looking sign in huge letters and three languages: “Offpiste skiing forbidden”. WHAT? This being Italy, I decide to ignore the sign. snowball heads over to a mountain patrol hut. He asks why. They say avalanche danger. We ask what’s the level. They say two. snowball tries to convince them that we ski offpiste every day. They smile. Their body language says ‘we’re not interested, just go away’. I elbow snowball. He finally lets it go and we ski off.

We find a nice gulley and decide to try it out. Here’s snowball happy


I spot a line from the bubble and ski it the following run. Here’s a look at it:


Everyone joins me on the next run down. Snowball takes a shot of me heading down:


Dodger has a power cut and waits for us at the restaurant. We arrive and get to watch this high-Alpine trekker making her way through the snow:


John, who says he hasn’t got skiboot-shaped feet, goes to a ski service shop. The guy who serves him points to a pair of Seth Pistols waiting for collection – widest skis in the shop by some margin – and says ‘offpiste! Crazy!’. Amazingly, John trusts him with his boot: “take a little off the footbed!’ ‘Little, yes!’. When the guy returns, the remaining width of the footbed is just enough to balance on it. John groans.

Back at the hotel, we are told that due to a plumbing fault our room lacks cold water. No plumbers are available on Sunday so snowball and I are moved to an apartment, which has two separate rooms. The lady sounds convincing, but I think this is a stratagem by snowball, who’s still worried about last night. Still, I’ll take the single room.


Day four: Zeb is here – dodger’s personal space requirements – a first couloir – starting a minislide

Zeb the guide shows up, annoyingly fit as usual. A few words about Zeb: until recently the youngest man to have climbed the Everest, he has climbed it again in 2001 in order to paraglide off it together with his wife. This was as part of a worldwide trip in which the two of them flew off the highest peak in each continent, including Antarctica. This included Mt McKinley in Alaska, where they smuggled the equipment and launched before the mountain rangers worked out what was happening (apparently it’s forbidden(. When they read the news and called him in France, mysteriously no one spoke English.

Zeb takes over. We head down a blue run to some warm-up terrain. Dodger reckons I carve too close to him. I resist the urge to make a cheap pun.

We get a tram to about 2900m and Zeb says: ‘do you want to do a couloir?’ He points across the valley to this little beauty (our line in blue):


Half an hour later, we’re in:


On the way down into the valley, the snow is deep, wet and heavy. But Dodger is slaying it:


A few minutes later, I’m skiing down the slush in a gulley and I feel the snow releasing under my feet. I try to keep on top and ski out of the way but one of my skis is caught under. I slide for about six yards. Fortunately, the slide stops and only one of my legs is buried to the waist, with the ski nearly vertical under the snow. It feels like wet concrete and I can’t move it one inch. John takes about five minutes to dig me out. I reckon that, by myself, it would have taken me up to an hour to get out, IF I could.

Here’s the minislide, with John’s backpack in the foreground.


Our line down was the one in red (the blue one is on the next day):

[horizon]

Day five: Germans, Darwin and faith – The Italian war on drugs – Sweden’s ski team goes psychedelic

Zeb obviously thinks we got fit in the last few days. We hike for an hour (the blue line in the photo posted above). Going up we pass a German chap with skiboards, alone, and apparently not carrying a transceiver. He asks Zeb for the way down. We pray for him.

Zeb finds us another sweet couloir, with some avalanche debris in the middle. Snowball takes another photo of me (lower right corner):


We’re skiing what could be called the Dolomites’ Vallee Blanche – here’s a photo:



Later we lose Dodger on a blue run, on the way to the restaurant. He surfaces twenty minutes later.

Heading back, a guy stops me on my way to the bubble and asks for my signature on a petition. It’s against drug use in Italy, he says. I look at him. ‘Far out, dude’, I say. I walk on.

Perhaps there’s something in pretending to be on drugs. Or perhaps this is really what Sweden’s national ski team suit looks like:



In the evening, it starts snowing lightly. Hopes are up but the snow stops after a 0.2 inch dusting.

Day six: Mischievous intelligent design – fresh snow – antique lifts
Today we ski Marmolada, which is next to Arabba and has a small glacier (it’s got to be small as we never saw it). Zeb leads us through some great fresh snow, but he does warn us about rocks our way down. We think that God (Ullr?) may have had a bad day when he put those rocks only two inches under the snow, right where you think of turning. But we still get to leave some pretty tracks:


John and I stay up late in the bar, drinking Weissbier and slagging off English girls, both of which turn out to be rather pleasurable occupations.

Day seven: I’m too fat – John’s considerable uphill speed
Zeb has eyed another nice couloir/gulley. The climb is on a south-facing slope. Not all of us have skins, so we get crampons. Looking up, it doesn’t seem much of a hike:


Ten minutes later, and after punching through on every third step, I’m reconsidering. John is heading up at a somewhat faster pace:


Here’s a shot of the whole thing after we skied it:


It’s time to leave Arabba. Tonight we’ll sleep in a mountain hut, Lagazuoi. It’s on the top of the mountain, with panoramic views.

It’s five a clock and John decides to skin up instead of taking the tram. Zeb joins him, though we think this is above and beyond the call of duty. Once we’re at the mountain hut, we open bets on how long it will take them to climb 700m of vertical along a blue run. I reckon two hours but I’m on the outside, with the lowest estimate 1 hour 10 minutes. Zeb is there in 50 minutes. We try to open him up to make sure that the mechanisms have to be oiled, but he refuses. John shows up after 1 hour 20 minutes. I am suitably impressed. I buy his beer.

While waiting for them, we catch some sunset shots:

[horizon]

Day eight: Wounding the Tanker – call me Bond

We head down from the refuge using a couloir where the snow can be charitably described as marginal. I ski like an idiot. I’m not sure I’m the only one. On the plus side, we see a chamois:


And some cool First World War ruins:



We then do some combat skiing through an interesting combination of small, densely spaced trees and breakable crust.

Driving to the next area, I spot this cool couloir:


Zeb says this is 800 m of vertical (about two and a half thousand feet) with an average 45degree incline. He says he wouldn’t take clients there. Anyone here interested in trying it?

The afternoon we ski the Five Towers, one of which has recently collapsed. Sorry, no photo, visibility was so-so.

We find good snow in the afternoon, heading down some gulleys into the trees. Unfortunately, the coverage isn’t great everywhere. I drop about three feet onto what looks like pristine powder. My ski gets skewered on a rock underneath and I plunge headfirst into a small tree. This is the first time I’m really, really thankful I’ve bought a helmet this winter. The tree has seven-inch long broken branches exactly where I hit it. The helmet doesn’t feel it.

Here’s a photo of the coreshot on my ski. Notice that the metal layer under the P-tex is cracked. I think with a foam core ski the rock might have gone through. After all, with all the gear I weigh more than 200 pounds.


On the next run, Zeb, who has been filming all this week and hopes to make a 30-minute DVD, decides to recreate a Bond ski chase scene. I volunteer to be the one who’s chased, which means my name is Bond. James Bond. Dodger and Lawrence are in pursuit. Zeb skis behind them, filming. I’m off. There’s a bit of a path in the forest and then we head off into the trees. I’m taking this seriously. I’m skiing twice as fast and twice as good as at any other time during the day. A small jump, a small drop to a pillow. Get into a gulley. Look up. Damn, I’ve lost them just when the skiing was more interesting. I hope Zeb has got some footage at least. Anyway this was a great idea. All my confidence is back.


Day nine: high mountain peak traffic – Dodger does a TGR-worthy jump – The Italian plan for total world domination

Only half a day left. We’re going to ski another gulley leading to a wide valley. We get up there and have to climb a little:


Unfortunately, the group in front of us has a rookie guide and we wait for more than half an hour until they clear the area above us.

…but it’s all worth it – see this pic!


On the way down, we all try to jump off a lip. Dodger's jump is by far the best, even better than Zeb's. Dodger dedicates this to the TGR forums and especially to Tyrone. He blows a kiss. No photos but Zeb has it on video.

Closing time. At the airport, we find an interesting sign, which might explain quite a lot about Italian economic performance (read both texts). I’m sure that Italian-patented Interactive Waiting Systems will conquer the world. Or perhaps the Italians should stick to football and high fashion:



THE END

[Atrain505]

One of the best TR's in a while.
Dolomites are unbelieveably cool.

[INDY GS]

I skied many of the areas you did last winter, unfortunately, with less than ideal conditions. The Dolomites are an amazing place, beautiful, quaint, expansive, diverse, & enlightening. I can't wait to get back with some better conditions. Thanks for the amazing TR.

[bad_roo]

Awesome scenery and some very respectable lines slayed too.

Looks like you got in the week before everything really warmed up.

[Humble]

simply beautiful

i will dream of the alps tonight

[Meathelmet]

Yay!

The dolomites truly are a Chuting Gallery.

Been climbing there in the summertime few times, but never been in the winter.
Seems like i have to correct my mistake..

Good stuff, Horizon!

[yogachik]

A dream of mine - the dolomites. Awesome pic with the war ruins.

Most important: how was the food??

[FrankZappa]

That was GREAT!!! Thanks H.

and... FKNA Yuuuummmm lookin:

Too cool.

[skier666]

Hot damn! You got some nice shots here C!

Looks like a radical trip....and a beautiful place.

So stoked on these pics:

[Egon]

Wow.

[Hicks]

Nice, count me jealous.
Straightline would be proud.

[Arno]

I could be persuadable for that...

Very nice TR. Must check out the Dolomiti one of these days

[ulty_guy]

holy shite, nice one, cedric!

[Xover]

awesome fuggin tr!!!

thanx for taking the time to put it together and share with us

[Hayduke]

FKNA Mr. Popa! That's an awesome TR. The Dolomites look amazing as does your shiny new rucksack and killer Str8line technique......Way to get after it mate!

[snowballs]

Good spiel, Horizon. The photos came out well!
(You'll notice I've added an s to my web-name, especially for Teton Gravity)

The very long, steep couloir that got everyone steamed up is just NW of Colfosco Between Sas Songher and Torri del Sas Songher.
The high runs on the first 2 days with the guide were done from the cable-car (tram in USA-speak) at Passo Pordoi.
PS There are 3 chamois in that photo, Horizon, as there were in reality.

Edit: On second thoughts there were 4 in reality.

[Hayduke]

Excellent, a new game....spot the Chamois - The Jong says there's 4.

Oh and welcome JONG

[bbirtle]

Holy @#%$ that's awesome! Way to go man!!!!

[gageyk]

Excellent Tr. Brought back good memories. I was there for 4 days just before Xmas 2003 in surprisingly good snow conditions.

We were staying at the top of Passeo Campolongo and at about 0800 on a bluebird day with about 5 inches of new I walked across the street, clicked in, and hopped the T-bar to the ridge between Corvada and Arraba. I then proceded to rip 3000 vertical feet of totally uncut right down the middle of the groomed run to Arraba, I looked back up and my tracks were the only ones on the mountain for at least 30 minutes.

What you said about the Italians never going off piste was so true. Upon my arrival in Arraba I walked across the street and hopped the tram for a quick 3000 plus vertical foot ride to the ridge between Arraba amd Marmaloda (sp). I would traverse along the ridge and then drop back towards Arraba, fresh tracks and no people for most of 2 hours. I also agree with the comment about lack of fat skis. When I asked for mid fats, some by mode,l I was greeted with a totally blank look. Ended up on Fischer "High Performance Race Skis", whatever they were.

We skiied Alta Badia, Arabba, Marmaloda, and Val Gardena all for about $35 US per day, peak season rates!!

Thanks for rekindling my memories, a beautiful spot indeed.

[Art Shirk]

A cut above. Thanks for the TR.

[hev]

that looks so sweet!