Tag Archive for: Dolomiti Superski

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This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (July 26)

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“Not Our Job”: A Play In One Very Short Act

Scene: Curtain rises on an evening outdoor dinner party under a tent. Several guests are gathered around a table with a variety of appetizers: shrimp, cheese and crackers, fruit. Bottles of wine, beer, and booze are at another table. A couple of dozen guests are mingling and getting to know one another. Two characters, an Online Magazine Publisher (OMP) and A Volunteer Ski Patrolman (VSP), continue their discussion.

How many speeders can you spot? Credit: Jean-Yves Bruel

OMP: We’ve just completed our Spring Survey a couple of weeks ago. We asked an unusual question of our readers, What Pisses You Off The Most About Ski Resorts? Can you guess what the number one winner was?

VSP: Easy, speeding skiers.

OMP: Give that man a kewpie doll! Out-of-control, wild, dangerous skiers who ski with abandon and no sense of safety. How’d you guess?

VSP: We hear it all the time. People are always asking us to nail these air-heads, pull their tickets, and banish them from the mountain. (Note: This ski patrolman volunteers at a Very Big Vermont Resort.)

OMP: And?

VSP: We have to explain it’s not our job. We’re there to provide aid to injured skiers, keep the fences up, sweep the trails. You know, safety.

OMP: Really?

VSP: We’re not cops, and we are not trained to be enforcers. Besides, we’re understaffed. We need two guys at the top, a guy on the phone, and a spare on patrol. That’s all we’ve got.

OMP: So who’s supposed to…

VSP: The resorts Ambassadors. They are the people on the hill who can pull tickets, if they do. But often even they don’t. The management doesn’t want to alienate customers by pulling tickets.

OMP: Alienate customers? But what about the senior who goes out five times a year and who just spent $140 on a lift ticket and gets terrorized by schuss boomers, and no one does anything about it?

VSP: Yeah, that’s a problem. The day lift ticket guy probably isn’t coming back, especially if he’s new to the resort or the sport.

OMP: So, speeding, out of control skiers, the number one thing that seniors in our survey find that pisses them off about ski resorts, is an intractable problem?

VSP: I guess so.

OMP: (Walking away): I think I’ll have another couple of shrimp.

[Curtain]

[Editor Note: We know a lot of our readers are either active or former ski patrollers. Please let us know what you think of our play. We want to take it to Broadway, but before we do, we need to hear your opinion. Is VSP correct? What can a resort do to chill the hotshots? A complete report of Spring Survey results will be coming out in the Fall.]

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This Week

Looking for shells, early morning on the beach at the Hilton Barbados. Credit: Yvette Cardozo

In our ongoing Non-Snow activities series, Yvette Cardozo shows us that scuba diving in Barbados can be as refreshing as a run down a wide blue trail. Well, at least it’s cool. If you haven’t snorkled on a reef or scuba-dived in the Caribbean, you might want to revise your bucket list.

Moon Rocks, Davis, WV. Credit: Pat McCloskey

Pat McCloskey continues our Summer Cycling Series with a visit to Davis, WV, which is becoming the Moab of the East for mountain biking. Ride with him over the famous Moon Rocks, an apt adventure considering we’re celebrating the 50th of Apollo 11.

Finally, Murray Sandman, a new SeniorsSkiing.com correspondent from New Zealand, explains how he created a DIY, three-week tour of the Dolomiti Superski in Northern Italy. 

On to August, and summer sailing for us. Thanks so much for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. Tell your friends, and remember, there are more of us every day and we aren’t going away.

Murray Sandman

My DIY Dolomite Ski Adventure

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With 450+ lifts, the Dolomiti in northern Italy is the largest ski region on the planet. This UNESCO World Heritage site is beautiful, historically and culturally interesting and overall, outstanding.

DOLOMITI SUPERSKI represents the area’s twelve regions, some quite famous (A portion of the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo), others individually unique. Best of all they can be accessed using a single RFID pass, which includes use of an expansive network of regional buses. Seniors (those born before November 30, 1954) get discounts on already low ticket prices. Click here for 2019-2020 ticket prices.

Climate Change now requires illogical and calculated guesses when planning long ski trips from ‘down-under’.  Mine began mid-February with 2 flights, a bus, a train, another train, and finally the local bus from Bolzano to the Val Gardena region – a tiring 27-hour journey.

My goal was to ski the famed Sellaronda ski circuit covering four Dolomite passes around the Sella massif. I would be there for three weeks, and during that time, I chose to change lodging only three times. It was a good plan created with the help of the local tourist office and one that easily can be followed by others. 

I started in the northern Dolomites. St. Cristina and Selva are ideal base locations offering plenty of lodging and dining options and providing easy access to skiing throughout Val Gardena. My first lodging was Garni Cir, a small BnB in St. Cristina. The next morning I caught a bus to the base area where I purchased my Dolomiti Superski Pass and took the Saslong gondola. The majority of slopes in the St. Cristina–Selva area are steepish and perfectly groomed; more relaxing intermediate slopes are on the Alpe Di Siusi slopes above Ortisei. 

My ski week in Val Gardena included first tracks on the World Cup slopes above St. Cristina and Selva, plunging down the steep skiers’ left off the Plan De Gralba cable car, and non-stop skiing the Saslong’s slick and bumpy pitch late one afternoon.

After 6 perfect days it was time to move from Val Gardena to the Val Di Fassa region. 

I took a local bus back to Bolzano, where I checked my luggage at the train station and visited the museum housing Oetzi, the world’s oldest “wet” mummy. This is a must-see for anyone visiting the region.

Reconstruction: Alfons & Adrie Kennis © South Tyrol Museum Archaeology/Ochsenreiter

After a stroll through this lovely small city, I caught the regional bus to Campitello, where I checked into the Tobia Hotel-Restaurant-Bar on the village piazza. Campitello is a rustic village with easy access to the slopes above Canazei-Alba and the off-piste steeps around Arabba. On route, I met two university students coincidentally staying at the same place. Both, I soon discovered, were excellent skiers and fun companions.

The next several days, we skied Canazei, Alba, Arabba, Marmolada and the Pozza di Fassa region. It was exhilarating and exhausting!

My next stop, a bus ride from Campitello, was San Martino Di Castrozza. On the way we crossed the beautiful Passo Rolle Pass before descending steep switchbacks into the town. I honestly think San Marino Di Castrozza is one of the world’s most beautiful mountain resorts. Surrounded by seriously steep peaks, it is a gateway to several ski areas. On this, the last leg of my Dolomiti journey, I stayed at Albergo BnB, a pretty place within walking distance of the new Ces gondola.

The mountains above San Martino Di Castrozza. Credit Murray Sandman

When I was there the snow was hard and fast, especially off the Tognola peaks and the Coston and Direttissima chairs. Many off-piste slopes are tree-covered and look like they’d be fantastic on a powder day.

It was the end of my three-week do-it-yourself Dolomite ski experience. Accessing my online DOLOMITI SUPERSKI Performance Check, I saw that in 15 days I skied 65,143 downhill meters over 357 kilometres of trials using 130 different lifts. On top of this let me say that the food was fantastic and the skies bright, bright blue. Another great ski trip!