Dolomiti Part II

Change in plans…
Actually we wanted to go West, to Chamonix, climb and ride some steep stuff there but due to the unstable weather right now, we had to change our plans…
Instead Michi and myself went South again. Back in the dolomites. Love this place 🙂 Awesome food, no stress, great atmosphere and best conditions at the moment…

I guess we were one of the lucky ones…

Day I / our aim for today: Canale del Prete-Vallencant, North colouir, sect. 55 degrees steepness, 45 degrees/300 m

Forcella Staunies lift gives you easy access to the top of 2905 meters. Riding with this old chairlift is already a cool adventure! You feel so small inbetween those huge mountains! The ambiance is just stunning! Above the cloud line we had just perfect weather! Yes, we were the lucky ones 🙂
From the top station we had to hike to Rifugio Lorenzi and from there a via Ferrata leads along the ridge (more or less) to the entrance of the colouir. Altough it’s just 80 altitude meters of climbing, it took us more than one hour to get to the colouir. No tracks and fresh powder made it quite hard to stay at the Ferrata and get along and climb there. We managed it to climb everything without crampons and ice axe but it’s better to use the equipment. This is definetely something for experienced mountain people! One mistake and you’re gone…
Finally we managed to get to the entrance of the colouir, quite windblown snowpack at the top, narrow and hard to ski in these snow conditions at the upper part… But lower down powder was waiting for us!
After skiing the colouir we decided to put on our skins and hike up into the direction of passo del Cristallo. Soooo good powder there!!!
Skied down, out the canyon and valley to Schluderbach… Waiting for the bus to get us back to Cortina and back to the car…
What a great day on the mountain!

what a stunning panorama!

Michi climbing the ridge…

Mel.. In the back rifugio Lorenzi…

Michi skiing the colouir…

hiking up again…

dropping into nowwhere… bad visibily but still a good shot 😉

Back in Cortina we went to a Internet place, checked the weather and decided to stay in the area of Monte Cristallo for another day of skiing. Marmolada has to wait – to unstable conditions…
The girl at the tourism office organized us a very charming and cheap place to stay, 7 km’s out of Cortina. 35 Euros for B&B, perfect! As the clocks work a bit different in Italy, we had late dinner and a nice eve, looking back on a cool day…

Day 2:

Changing plans again… Took the funivia Faloria up and wanted to traverse to Canale Marcoira before heading over to Monte Cristallo… However, the weather was to unsecure, clouds were moving in and around the route to fast, so we decided to take a few powder runs in the ski area instead… Supercooooool!!!! The area is a big playground with a lot of short but steep runs…

After that we decided to move over to Monte Cristallo once again and skied Canale I di Creste Bianche… However, we were lucky again, clouds moved away for the time we were there, so another cool run down into the valley with lots of powder…
In german I would say: “Wenn Engel reisen…” ;-)…

Michi riding the pillows…

Got back with the bus to Cortina, checked the weather forecast again for the next day and had to admit that it wouldn’t make sense to drive over to Marmolada… Therefore the conditions have to be more stable… But as the mountains are here for many, many more years it’s another great project to look forward to…

It started snowing in Cortina when we left and we took the good memories back home! Hopefully soon we’ll be back for more adventures in the Dolomites…

THANKS Michi for the great, joyful and happy company!!! It’s awesome to have such a cool guy around who also loves the mountain spirit and adventure in the mountains!!! Thxxxx buddy 🙂

Here’s another edit, enjoy watching 🙂

For more information about the diverse options in the Dolomites I would recommend the book:

Freeride in Dolomiti / Francesco Tremolada (italian + english version)
Map Dolomiti Ampezzane / 1:25 000

Our tours were an inspiration from there… 🙂