TR: Sella / Dolomites / Italy
Dolomites. Vertical walls of brown rock scarred with white lines of snow, some
of them skiable, some only for the imagination. Inbetween, long and deep
valleys leading down from the plateaus. Bold aerial tramways floating up from the
passes below provide for rather easy access to the alpine terrain. Sounds like
the place to go, we had been thinking for quite some years now, but somehow, we never made
it there. Until last weekend. So here's a little trip report.
First, the protagonists had to be set into the scene. For me, this
involved the decision to leave the van at home and grab a ride via
mitfahrgelegenheit.at to Rosenheim. For some obscure reason, both Latz and me arrived there half an hour early, which was ascribed to cosmic coincidence and is not likely to happen again in the next three millenia. But Sportbohème wouldn't be Sportbohème if we hadn't managed to lose that time searching for gas stations and falsifying the claim that the Brenner state road is almost as fast as the highway.
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After a cozy night in front of the skating rink at Canazei, we woke up to clear
skies and enjoyed a macchiato at a bar before driving up Passo Pordoi to catch
the first tram. In the car park, we talked to some Austrians who didn't want to
believe that skiing frozen couloirs is a bad idea (but they proved themselves
wrong later), and some nice Germans who were eager to share information on the
conditions in the different runs while waiting for the tram (thanks!).
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As a warm-up run and to check snow quality, we chose Canale Col Alton. Oh, a
short interjection for explanation. The Italians call their couloirs "canale".
Probably because they don't speak French. Don't blame them. For my part, I'd
gladly call every couloir "canale", if only that coincided with world-wide
supply of Italian quality coffee.
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To get back to the topic, you reach Col Alton by following the summer trail
from the Pordoi tram towards Piz Boé, ascending on foot for a couple of minutes
and then skiing down from the tracks crossing over to the Boé hut and Val Mesdi
(which is the most famous run, and on good days strongly frequented by
tourists). Well, we were too early, and had to fight with crust and patches of
ice in the shady parts that had us revert to sideslipping, all the while being
glad that this thing was only about 40 degrees steep. We skied out Val Lastis,
which was also aking for more sun to soften the crust, and hitchhiked back to
the pass.
We decided to wait a bit for the sun to soften things up and had lunch. Around
1:30, Canale Joel, one of the classics at the Sella, was just about perfect:
not too deep up on top, but already well skiable in the shady part.
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To round the day off, we put on our harnesses and took another ride up to
ski Canale Holzer (named after Heini Holzer, who did the first descent in
1972). It starts out as an open bowl with ideal gradients for getting some
warm-up turns, and then abruptly turns into a steep and tight 45 degree chute
between vertical rock walls. About half-way down the Canale, it's time to stop
on a small platform to the left and carefully descend towards an anchor used
for the subsequent abseil often necessary to overcome a section of water ice.
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Arriving at the anchor, we met two skiers that had followed tracks from the top
of the plateau and had no idea where they were. Lucky for them (and for us,
because I didn't want to see anyone die) they managed to climb
down next to the ice, ignoring our warnings. So, apparently, at the moment you
don't need a rope in Canale Holzer. We still used ours, as it seemed safer.
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In the evening we found a small pasta and pizza joint near the tourist
information in Canazei, where we had great pasta and re-boosted our sugar
levels. After that, back to the skating rink, beer, chips, looking at the map
and off to sleep.
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Since Saturday was to be the last day with good weather, we decided to take the
first tram up Sass Pordoi and then climb Piz Boé. From
the peak, we skied the east face and then turned north towards a small snow
ridge that marks the entrance to Val de Fontane, a beautiful south-facing 40
degree run. Snow was nice and soft, and we picked our route back down to the
road through the great terrain below the Canale.
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After lunch, we took a second ride up to Pordoi, jogging past the entrance to
Canale Joel and the Boé traverse to race the clouds slowly moving in from all
sides. Using skins, we crossed the Sella group at high altitude to descend down
to the Pisciadu valley and the hut located at its end. After crossing a small
ridge to the left, we were plannig to ski down Val Setus, another classic run.
Unfortunately, the guidebook has some wrong information here, telling you to
avoid the first gully after the cable car (used to transport materials to the
hut during summertime) and ski the second one. Well, the first one had tracks
going in, but also coming back up, and second one had no tracks but didn't look
like something we wanted to ski into. Since it was already late we decided to
cross a bit further to the left and ski Val Cuela, which we could clearly
identify. Cuela also had the advantage of finishing directly on the pass
(Grödnerjoch), which allowed us to instantly find a taxi to take us back to
Pordoi.
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Sunday the visibility was low, as expected, so we crossed over to Val Mezdi as
it is easy to find and we were expecting better weather further north.
Surprisingly what looked like a mere cm on the pass turned out to provide ample
flotation in some places, thanks to the storm during the night, so at least the
top part of Mesdi was very enjoyable.
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Once out of the valley, we took the Sella
Ronda lifts back in a hurry (of course, we had forgotten about the change to CET... "oh look, these clocks are all wrong!"). Arriving at the car, we met the two nice Italian skiers we had encountered earlier, and after sharing some cold Augustiner beer for goodbies we hit the road back home..
