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Dolomiti Superski 2020


eaf

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Holy cow, another trip to the Skiers Paradise! A place with endless groomers and highest number of sunny days in Alps.

A rough start with crazy outbound weather with snow peaking right around the departure time. When it hit, it hit hard, and I even started looking at rail options, but then miraculously the snow took a break, and I zipped to EWR in no time at all.

Stupid United flight this time. Far from the luxury of Emirates, longer en route, but timely departure and free booze in the United Club. The only thing left before departure is deicing.

Whoo-hoo, looking at the webcams and forecast, it's gonna be truly epic. Lots of sunny days has its unfortunate side effect on snow quality or even availability, plus this time I'm flying earlier than ideal, but the storm that drowned Venice in December dumped enough in the mountains to last till now. 

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Somebody took all the snow away! I even climbed a bridge, and then a hill, and then a whole mountain, to see if perhaps there would be a glimpse of whiteness in the distance... It was all in vain.

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Edited by eaf
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That was Verona. A small old town about half way from Milan to the mountains. There's more to see in the streets, but I've already been there and was in a hurry.

Today's gonna be the first skiing day. People are saying that besides the big December storm that dumped 6' of snow there was little since then except half a foot this Sat.

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13 minutes ago, eaf said:

I found the best ski tow ever. The only problem is that my daughter will kill me if she sees this. So IDK, perhaps I should just cancel my return flight and ride this back and forth, back and forth... 

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This is legitimately amazing

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Today was all about a trip to Hidden Valley and the adjacent Cinque Torri area.

It's far, three valleys by ski, then a ski bus, then a few more lifts to get to the farthest point of the day - the Five Towers.

Honestly, the trails aren't any better than in the valleys much closer, quality-wise. They're much longer though, emptier, and since there's so much snow in the mountains this year (sorry, Venice), sometimes it feels like skiing in the plains. Yeah, there's a groomer, but if you want you can just go sideways and get lost.

So, I took the first lift up from the hotel, and was so rushing to get to the destination that had to spin wheels on local slopes for some time because the next connecting lift wasn't running yet.

Followed the Sella Ronda circle counterclockwise till I reached Alta Badia - the final area before the bus hop, took me 90 minutes to get there, then boarded the bus, and after following winding roads for 15mi or so got to the bottom of Lagazuoi lift. A picture from the top of it is in the previous post, but I didn't take the lift yet. The lift would take me to the 11km Hidden Valley trail back, and I didn't get to my towers yet.

So I passed the lift line, crossed the road and entered the Cinque Torri skiing area. Like I said, piste-wise it's hardly anything special, but views were different, and that's all that matters here. Alas, after some time skiing the same place you get used to it, and so like a junkie, you seek for something new, something different, something far, doesn't matter if it's any better, you just want to take in more and more... The only limiting factor is that you must get back to your home area by 4:30pm, for everything gets closed for grooming at 5, and lifts are starting to shut down before then. You can miss the last lift by a few, and land in a different town of the same valley, that's fine, just take a ski bus to get home. But if you miss by far, then IDK what can possibly help. If passes are closed, look for a place to stay overnight.

Anyway, somewhere below is a pic with the Five Towers. Luckily (with all bussing, exploring, trying all the trails in the way, etc) I got there by noon.

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42 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Are you skiing off piste at all??  You eat anything good??  Spaghetti and a meatballs. 

They're heavy on polenta, lasagna and goulash. If you get to the German country then inevitably simple things like sausages and fries pop up. I had a deer yesterday. It was like beef, structure wise, just some special taste, which I'm not even sure wasn't due to spices.

Yeah, I did some off piste in Alta Badia yesterday, the snow is great this year, but if you want to get far, like today, speed and groomers is all that matters.

What I can't place yet is grappa. Finished one blueberry bottle, it was like a sweet liquor. Today got one with Erbe Alpine, and it's smelly, yet bitter, brrr.

Edited by eaf
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To close the Hidden Valley subject, here are some pics from it. Basically, it's a long, 11km return trail that undoes both the winding climb of the bus and the Lagazuoi lift. It goes and goes surrounded by peaks on both sides. At some point it passes a waterfall area.

Difficulty ranges from blue to red, but overall it's a sightseeing track. It brings the skiers almost back to the point where he boarded the bus, but is about 1km short. This final km can be conquered by taxi, cross-country skiing or a horse tow, like in the pics above.

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