Dolomiti…

Finally got to ski Canale Holzer & Co 🙂 wohooooo!!!!

The Dolomites are such a beautiful place on earth, just a few hours away from Innbruck… It was time to go there, riding the Canale’s and explore the terrain down there… I was already amazed when we went there in autumn for biking, this time even more impressive!

day 1:

Andi and me started in Ibk quite early to get the 9 a.m. cable car up to Pordoi. Passo Pordoi is especially known for Canale Holzer, named from Heini Holzer, one of the pioneers in steep skiing. Unfortunately he died very young but left a tremendous list of steep skiing decents behind…
What a beautiful day! We arrived earlier than expected and stopped by in the close hotel for a coffee. Best coffee on earth and soooo cheap compared to our prices back home 🙂
The Pordoi cable car gives you easy access to great terrain! We started with Canale Joel, a south facing colouir, 40-45 degrees steepness, that you can see directly from the pass. Perfect for warming up! Actually we wanted to do a panorama ski shot up at the top but when we turned around and saw around 20 people following us, we decided to escape and ski in front of them 😉
Got another ticket (single ride 8 Euros) and were now dropping in Canale Holzer. 1100 altitude meters, with a steepness between 45-50 degrees. The snow in the North face was defineteley much better than in the south face… Actually you have an abseiling place but we could get down over the ice field without rapelling. This winter is defineteley a very snowy winter in the dolomites with a very good snow pack! To soon we were down, have to have skied the Canale Holzer!
Getting back to Passo Pordoi was then quite a mission. After 15 min trying to hitch-hike back, we decided to ski down, get the cable car and skin up to the Passo again… The counter at the ticket service was closed, instead we had to discuss with the lifty, that he gives us a ticket… He was really grumpy but could get one ticket, and the other one was free… Lucky us!
Back to Passo Pordoi, lunch break, so relaxed atmosphere – unbelievable!
One more colouir for the day… The plan was Canale Larsei Est but we had to change plans at the entry of the colouir. The south east face snow pack was so shitty that we had to skin up and ski the other option: Canale Larsei, South face, 1100 altitude meters, 45-50 degree steepness. At least it was better from the snow conditions but there was no chance of skiing it. You never knew if you turn that the snow pack would break or not. We call it Bruchharsch and that’s really shitty snow to ski in that kind of steepness… 😉
No rope needed again, the abseiling place was covered in snow to slide it down…
Skins up again, hiking into the sunset, letting the memories stroll back…

We decided for the next day to go to Monte Cristallo, skiing some more Canale’s there… So we drove to Cortina, luckily found a cheap B&B place and moved on the next day…

Photographer: Andi Vigl

Photographer: Andi Vigl

day 2…

Left Cortina and drove up direction passo Tre Croci. Of course we were not the only one’s there but there were much more people than at Pordoi. Mostly italian Freeriders and Alpinists though…
Bought a lift ticket from a very unpolite lady (she was just to lazy to talk in English to us 😉 but with my little italian we got what we wanted…) The Cristallo lifts give you easy access to forcella Staunies and other Canale’s. Our aim was to ski the Canale Staunies (north face) first, get back by ski bus and hike and ski Canale del Prete…
But sometimes plans happen to be different ;-)…
At the top of the lift station the nice, cool lifty asked in Italian to leave my name and phone number there… Just in case, as the have to have some infos who’s skiing the terrain and if something happens they have a contact… Of course I understood just have of it but didn’t matter 😉
The section giving you access to Canale di Creste Bianche etc was quite crowded, about 15 people in line, waiting and climbing up the section…
@ Canale Staunies we saw just two guys far down, nobody else behind… The colouir was already quite tracked but still very good conditions to ski! Especially here you have to be one of the first, to get untracked powder… But that didn’t matter at all… Just happy to ski in this epic terrain!
Andi wasn’t feeling very good this day, I felt sorry for him but couldn’t change the fact… Poor guy! We skied down to the bottom, hiked to the bus stop and waited… And waited and waited… We should have read the fine print at the bottom of the bus stop’s info because then we would have found out that we have to go to the other bus stop, in direction of Cortina… Well, now we know 😉
So instead of getting back to the car and lift in time, I managed to go back with an Italian family, to get the car and get Andi… Andi wasn’t able to ski anymore, so I decided for myself, not getting back to Cristallo anymore and skiing one of the Colouirs by myself, instead I had late lunch with Andi… Canale Prete has to wait but that doesn’t matter at all 😉 The mountains are here for a much, much longer time 🙂
Thxxxx Andi for joining in and the cool adventure 🙂