Cantabrigienne
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Corvara is one of the key villages on the famed Sella Ronda in Sudtirol - the German-speaking part of Italy that used to be Austria prior to WW1. I spent a week in Corvara last summer & had made 3 summer visits to Ortisei in Val Gardena, the next valley over (home of the better known Selva di Gardena) over the past decade but this was my first ski trip to the Dolomites.
I met up my with my middle sister & parents who were flying out from Hong Kong. Bit of an extravagance when I live in Vancouver and (normally) have a season pass for Whistler. But it's such a vastly different experience - and with a 80yo father who only started to ski in the last decade, it seemed like something the family should do before it gets too late. (Another plus: private lessons in Italy are less than half the cost of Whistler). We flew into Munich & had 4hr transfer in a Mercedes van taxi - we typically take the train in the summer, but skiing involves more luggage & my parents are getting a bit too old to run for connecting trains with suitcases! Our hotel (Ciasa de Munt) was a 5-8 minute walk from gondola base and 1-5 minute walk to multiple good restaurants in the evening.
Day 0 aka changeover day - many family-run hotels in the Alps limit peak season bookings to 7 night stays that start on Saturday, in order to optimize room bookings. This is known as changeover day (for those thinking about Diva Europe 2021: if you can do a Sunday-Sunday stay, odds are you'll have an amazing day on Saturday when the slopes are quiet). Walked over to the gondola base to buy lift passes, which clocked in at EUR290 or C$430/US$320 for a 6 day Dolomiti Superski pass. We thought about getting dad the more limited Alta Badia pass for around EUR230 - but it turned out we were able to buy him a pay-per-ride points card with about EUR100 loaded on it, figuring as a beginner he wouldn't get much value out of the full pass. Annoyingly, the ski school & rental place were in a separate building from the gondola, so it looked like we'd have to trudge across a carpark every morning.
Rentals ran about EUR130-150 for 6 days for anything that wasn't a soft beginner ski (they tried to push a Rossignol Nova 2 on my sister when she asked for an advanced ski!) and with most of the skis were race or carving skis, it was a very unfamilar bunch of skis on offer...my sister ended up on Volkl Race Tigers & I picked Head Absolut Joy. (Our regular rides are Blizzard BP88 and Volkl Yumi respectively). The 1 week locker rental wasn't cheap but it was hi-tech + cushy - the lock was coded onto our ski pass and we just held it up to a fob reader to pop open our locker, which had 4x boot driers & 4x glove driers built into the locker!
Day 1: turns out you walk out of the ski school & can ride a button lift to access 1) the main gondola (Boe); 2) the "cross town" Borest gondola that takes you to Colfosco, the adjacent town or 3) another 4 person chair that lets you ski across town to catch the *other* gondola (Col Alt). After consulting with the jokey blokes of the Snowheads forum (UK-based board similar to Epic), I had determined that the best place for warmup runs was over in Colfosco. Button lifts are a joy to ride vs t-bars since you ride up solo. Took the cross-town gondola to Colfosco (a gentle 30 min stroll away in the summer!) to jump on the Sodlisia chair, which served both a nice wide bunny slope AND as a link into the Sella Ronda. Not the greatest combo as many folks were just straightlining to make the connection, but luckily it was a super wide run & plenty of room to do stupid exercises to warm up.
Three laps of the bunny slope and then over to what the Brits like to call Edelweiss valley - a west facing set of slopes above Colfosco. Summer 2019 they had been building a new 6seater to replace a drag lift, as this area is the main progression of slopes for the ski school - the Dolomites had a couple of epic dumps in Nov & Dec but no fresh snow for all of January. As a result, the red runs in this area seemed both quieter and easier to ski because they were in good condition vs the hardpacked blue runs that were seeing more traffic.
After a few laps we skied back down to Colfosco to catch the gondola up to Passo Gardena to eat at the Jimmy Hutte. I'd stopped there in the summer to chug down some fresh buttermilk before starting a hike (and spotted the same kid who served me in the summer who was *still* wearing a plastic cowboy hat adorned with steampunk goggles. I guess he's nailed down an easy way to be memorable....) We thought there was a long queue for a table but in the end we were escorted upstairs to the stube. It's one of the more renown rifugios/huttes in the area - the kind of place with a 10,000 bottle cellar and some super serious looking food. I had veal check on pine risotto & think my sister had a barley risotto. Adding in a bottle of mineral water and an apfeschorle (half apple juice, half fizzy mineral water), about EUR40 or US$45/C$60 - for waiter service and Michelin red plate calibre cooking! With tax & tip, I'd be spending at least C$90 for something in the same vein at Christine's on Blackcomb.
Skied back down to Colfosco - noting that this run back was about 1/8 the total distance of the Sella Ronda - a lovely red (harder intermediate) run at the top and a motorway wide blue piste at the bottom that other folks straightlined. Back to Edelweiss Valley for a few more laps and then called it day - a pretty modest 8,500 ft of vertical. (I'm embarrassed to admit that the Epicmix app tells me that's in line my average day at Whistler in 2018/19, when I decided I would have short but effective days by skiing straight from 11ish to 1ish to minimize time in lines while everyone else is at lunch)
I met up my with my middle sister & parents who were flying out from Hong Kong. Bit of an extravagance when I live in Vancouver and (normally) have a season pass for Whistler. But it's such a vastly different experience - and with a 80yo father who only started to ski in the last decade, it seemed like something the family should do before it gets too late. (Another plus: private lessons in Italy are less than half the cost of Whistler). We flew into Munich & had 4hr transfer in a Mercedes van taxi - we typically take the train in the summer, but skiing involves more luggage & my parents are getting a bit too old to run for connecting trains with suitcases! Our hotel (Ciasa de Munt) was a 5-8 minute walk from gondola base and 1-5 minute walk to multiple good restaurants in the evening.
Day 0 aka changeover day - many family-run hotels in the Alps limit peak season bookings to 7 night stays that start on Saturday, in order to optimize room bookings. This is known as changeover day (for those thinking about Diva Europe 2021: if you can do a Sunday-Sunday stay, odds are you'll have an amazing day on Saturday when the slopes are quiet). Walked over to the gondola base to buy lift passes, which clocked in at EUR290 or C$430/US$320 for a 6 day Dolomiti Superski pass. We thought about getting dad the more limited Alta Badia pass for around EUR230 - but it turned out we were able to buy him a pay-per-ride points card with about EUR100 loaded on it, figuring as a beginner he wouldn't get much value out of the full pass. Annoyingly, the ski school & rental place were in a separate building from the gondola, so it looked like we'd have to trudge across a carpark every morning.
Rentals ran about EUR130-150 for 6 days for anything that wasn't a soft beginner ski (they tried to push a Rossignol Nova 2 on my sister when she asked for an advanced ski!) and with most of the skis were race or carving skis, it was a very unfamilar bunch of skis on offer...my sister ended up on Volkl Race Tigers & I picked Head Absolut Joy. (Our regular rides are Blizzard BP88 and Volkl Yumi respectively). The 1 week locker rental wasn't cheap but it was hi-tech + cushy - the lock was coded onto our ski pass and we just held it up to a fob reader to pop open our locker, which had 4x boot driers & 4x glove driers built into the locker!
Day 1: turns out you walk out of the ski school & can ride a button lift to access 1) the main gondola (Boe); 2) the "cross town" Borest gondola that takes you to Colfosco, the adjacent town or 3) another 4 person chair that lets you ski across town to catch the *other* gondola (Col Alt). After consulting with the jokey blokes of the Snowheads forum (UK-based board similar to Epic), I had determined that the best place for warmup runs was over in Colfosco. Button lifts are a joy to ride vs t-bars since you ride up solo. Took the cross-town gondola to Colfosco (a gentle 30 min stroll away in the summer!) to jump on the Sodlisia chair, which served both a nice wide bunny slope AND as a link into the Sella Ronda. Not the greatest combo as many folks were just straightlining to make the connection, but luckily it was a super wide run & plenty of room to do stupid exercises to warm up.
Three laps of the bunny slope and then over to what the Brits like to call Edelweiss valley - a west facing set of slopes above Colfosco. Summer 2019 they had been building a new 6seater to replace a drag lift, as this area is the main progression of slopes for the ski school - the Dolomites had a couple of epic dumps in Nov & Dec but no fresh snow for all of January. As a result, the red runs in this area seemed both quieter and easier to ski because they were in good condition vs the hardpacked blue runs that were seeing more traffic.
After a few laps we skied back down to Colfosco to catch the gondola up to Passo Gardena to eat at the Jimmy Hutte. I'd stopped there in the summer to chug down some fresh buttermilk before starting a hike (and spotted the same kid who served me in the summer who was *still* wearing a plastic cowboy hat adorned with steampunk goggles. I guess he's nailed down an easy way to be memorable....) We thought there was a long queue for a table but in the end we were escorted upstairs to the stube. It's one of the more renown rifugios/huttes in the area - the kind of place with a 10,000 bottle cellar and some super serious looking food. I had veal check on pine risotto & think my sister had a barley risotto. Adding in a bottle of mineral water and an apfeschorle (half apple juice, half fizzy mineral water), about EUR40 or US$45/C$60 - for waiter service and Michelin red plate calibre cooking! With tax & tip, I'd be spending at least C$90 for something in the same vein at Christine's on Blackcomb.
Skied back down to Colfosco - noting that this run back was about 1/8 the total distance of the Sella Ronda - a lovely red (harder intermediate) run at the top and a motorway wide blue piste at the bottom that other folks straightlined. Back to Edelweiss Valley for a few more laps and then called it day - a pretty modest 8,500 ft of vertical. (I'm embarrassed to admit that the Epicmix app tells me that's in line my average day at Whistler in 2018/19, when I decided I would have short but effective days by skiing straight from 11ish to 1ish to minimize time in lines while everyone else is at lunch)
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