Johnny Law Posted February 5, 2019 Report Posted February 5, 2019 Dude that is the tits mcgee and your pics are great. One could spend their whole life exploring that area and not even scratch the surface. Quote
Popular Post eaf Posted February 5, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Posted February 5, 2019 10 1 Quote
tarponhead Posted February 5, 2019 Report Posted February 5, 2019 That app sounds like essential gear, pretty cool! Conditions look superb, and thx for the pics. Quote
Barb Posted February 5, 2019 Report Posted February 5, 2019 Like those couches made of ice. All pictures fantastic. Makes me want to go back to Europe ASAP. 1 Quote
rummy Posted February 5, 2019 Report Posted February 5, 2019 What an awesome, awesome place! Great pictures make me wish I was there. Thanks eaf.. Quote
Shadows Posted February 5, 2019 Report Posted February 5, 2019 3 hours ago, tarponhead said: That app sounds like essential gear, pretty cool! Conditions look superb, and thx for the pics. For real, you need a transit map Quote
Popular Post eaf Posted February 6, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Posted February 6, 2019 Just one pic today 9 1 1 Quote
eaf Posted February 6, 2019 Author Report Posted February 6, 2019 Today was nuts. I went to explore Seiser Alm - another secluded area about south west of Sellaronda. It's worse connected than yesterday's Alta-Badia, but it seemed to me after studying all the printed maps that a day tour was very possible. So in the morning I went straight in clockwise direction along the main circle never stopping anywhere and never taking any side trips. Took me 40 minutes to get to Val Gardena area, from where I was planning to go down to St Christina, use tunnel to cross under the town, go over the ridge to Ortisei and from there take the lift up to Seiser Alm. Once in Val Gardena I relaxed a little, well perhaps a little too much since I noticed a sign to Seiser Alm with a bus icon, so I thought I knew where to go. Also I discovered a nice trail surrounded by untracked slopes and skied on them like half a dozen time enjoying the quiet. Meanwhile the masses were attacking the main Sellaronda trails nearby like crazy. It's unbelievable how strongly many feel about conquering that big circle no matter what. Skiing is so much better on the sides, and yet people are just committed to doing the 360 degree tour. Anyway, I kind of got used to Lasers off piste, and even started to enjoy them despite the 78mm. Tomorrow I'll try Stormriders 88 for a day, let's see how that goes. Finally I got tired skiing the same place over and over again no matter how quiet it was and went all the way down following the signs to the bus and what I thought was the tunnel. With my luck there was no tunnel of course. But there was a bus. Full of Germans. With a driver who would speak German only. Who wanted money and was kind enough to say Seiser Alm a couple of times, so I shrugged, paid and went in wondering where the hell the tunnel was and why I had to pay for a connection within the big skiing area. The bus departed and instead of tunnel went through the forest along a snow covered road. I should have known better because I've noticed chains on the wheels and chains would be a weird choice for a ride through a tunnel. With nobody speaking English around me (WTH, even signs are in German, enough is enough!) I turned to my phone. And yep. I followed the wrong road down. The signs were right, it's just that it was an alternative, not the planned way of getting to Seiser Alm. But the good news were that apparently the bus was taking me to the far-far end of the Seiser Alm area, which was perfect as it was allowing me to cross it only once on the way back and return to Sellaronda using the path I plotted on the maps. So I fired the app, plotted the course, cursed at the 47km combined distance and weird 01:81 hr lift time, and went on to explore. That was an amazing area. So quiet and beautiful. Way more spread out and logical than yesterday's Alta-Badia, with decent groomers, and little people. It even had a clearly plotted and named route through it, and it was way more pleasant to follow it than Sellaronda, as other people didn't have this mad determination of sticking to just the trails on the route, so I didn't feel crowded. Once I yelled on a lift in desperation if anybody spoke English, and hooray, I finally had someone to ask about why was I surrounded by Germans. Turns out, this entire area once belonged to Austria, and only after WW1 was it added to Italy. Some towns adapted better (like Canazei or Alba), some cherished their roots more, and as a result there are now these places in Italy with German schools and people speaking German and Italian, which apparently leaves little place for English in the heads. This gets as crazy as towns having dual names, e.g. Ortisei on my path is an Italian name, and its German counterpart is St. Ulrich. These funny details make navigation all the more interesting of course. Anyway, I made my way back through Ortisei (quite colorful town that I had to cross on foot in order to start climbing over the next pass), St Christina and its tunnel and finally through the quite trashed Sellaronda. Frankly, I was worrying about timely return up until I reached St Christina around 3:20. From there I knew that I was crossing back into familiar territory, and indeed managed to descend to Alba by 5 just fine. 6 Quote
toast21602 Posted February 6, 2019 Report Posted February 6, 2019 Awesome, Eaf! What a great trip you've had.... and thanks for the little history lesson. Definitely interesting. Quote
Popular Post eaf Posted February 6, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Posted February 6, 2019 9 2 Quote
Shadows Posted February 6, 2019 Report Posted February 6, 2019 I feel poor just looking at these pics 1 Quote
Schif Posted February 6, 2019 Report Posted February 6, 2019 This is absolutely incredible. Amazing. Hats off to you Eaf for having a most epic adventure Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted February 6, 2019 Report Posted February 6, 2019 4 hours ago, eaf said: Just one pic today You can have her. I’ll take Heidi Quote
eaf Posted February 7, 2019 Author Report Posted February 7, 2019 The weather went downhill today. No more flying down those afternoon Sellaronda moguls, can't see a thing. It's all uniform white until you get within a few meters of it, and that means a really slow return. Still, it was quite nice during the day, partly cloudy, and despite the slow return I still made it. Tomorrow's the last day, and I'll have to be moving out of the area by night. Might be a challenge because the windshield fluid froze, I can't believe somebody poured water there in winter. I think I've finished exploring Alta-Badia today. Parts of it turned out pretty challenging and interesting. All in all I wouldn't hesitate making it a base camp next time. Reasonable connectivity (even has a bus going to another isolated area that I've never seen, Kronplatz), not many people, large and variable terrain. And I didn't like SR88 on piste at all. Had to come back and swap it for Lasers again. 1 1 Quote
phillycore Posted February 7, 2019 Report Posted February 7, 2019 I just keep thinking that I'd be scared shitless about getting lost and stuck somewhere I have no idea how to get back from.Trip looks absolutely amazing though.Stoked for you for sure.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote
eaf Posted February 8, 2019 Author Report Posted February 8, 2019 Wow, today was a racing day! The weather has turned back to sunny, beautiful visibility. I got tired of exploring, and just went straight to Val Gardena, looking for some secluded trails, and found two amazingly good reds. Pristine conditions all day, no people at all (the crowds were meanwhile storming Sellaronda circle not too far away). I was skiing these two looong trails a good half of the day alternating and stopping for coffee or lunch from time to time. Hero snow, ridiculously easy carving, I was flying the reds on edges and couldn't have enough of it, not even for a moment bored. Speed, give me more speed! Love the Lasers, want to buy them so much now. And Mama Mia, what a terrific last day in Dolomites! Off to Venice now for a full day of apres-ski. Important part will be to make it to the airport in Milan after that in one piece. 6 1 Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted February 8, 2019 Report Posted February 8, 2019 Great report Eaf!!! You’re still a tool... 1 Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted February 8, 2019 Report Posted February 8, 2019 5 hours ago, eaf said: Aaaaahh!!! Wow should have used google maps. Quote
eaf Posted February 9, 2019 Author Report Posted February 9, 2019 12 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: Wow should have used google maps. I used it. It lied. What I totally ignored as it turned out was a sign about an hour from this place. The sign was in Italian of course, it mentioned the name of the pass (that I didn't know), and all in all it cost me an hour of driving up a serpentine to this point near a frozen lake, then an hour of driving down, and the cost of detour using a longer road. Quote
eaf Posted February 9, 2019 Author Report Posted February 9, 2019 I finally have a decent WiFi... So a few more pics from the last skiing day. First one is the frozen lake near which the road was closed. 5 1 Quote
eaf Posted February 9, 2019 Author Report Posted February 9, 2019 And in about 3 hours of drive from that snow goodness - Venice. 6 2 Quote
rummy Posted February 9, 2019 Report Posted February 9, 2019 (edited) Eaf. Are you a professional photographer?,, If not, you could be... Edited February 9, 2019 by rummy Auto correct.... grumble, grumble.. Quote
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