Hi folks. I’m currrently in Montebelluna, Italy, after a couple of tough but fun days on Dolomite snow. Montebelluna is where most of the world’s ski boots are made, or at least that’s the word. So over the next few days I hope to do some blogging about boot making.
The mission for this past Saturday. Find snow, ski it. Preferably in Dolomites as doing so got us to a region with better snowpack, and also got me down south here so I could continue to Montebelluna on Sunday afternoon. This photo is from the Cristallo-Scharte, one of the classics of Dolomite ski touring. Click image to enlarge.
I use the word “tough” because the ski tours we’re doing are not hit by huge numbers this time of year — reason being they get icy, have thin snow that doesn’t smooth terrain features such as rocks and steps, and ingress/egress can sometimes be a bit unpleasant if it involves bushwacking. They’re also tough for your intrepid Euro tourist because I’m feeling a bit worked from all the traveling, different food, and that sort of thing. This is a common syndrome for myself and many other soujourners; when the adrenalin and excitement wear off, you start to notice your stomach.
Fritz packs three people's stuff in his tiny Skoda. It wasn't exactly roomy in there. Lots of folks around here use rooftop boxes on their little Euro cars. The Skoda would look so bad with a box, I'm glad it doesn't have perched up there. Indeed, one wonders how they hold up to 110 mph on an autobahn.
At any rate, we left Bad Haering on Friday evening, with Fritz at the wheel of his Skoda, making the incredibly curvy European mountain roads scream in submission. His words: “I’m lucky I was driving, otherwise I would have gotten sick.” Um, thanks Fritz for that observation.
For those of you who've driven around here, this is the tunnel getting you out of Innsbruck area and up towards Brenner Pass, where suddenly, you're of course in Italy.
Cristallo Dolomite
Crux of the route was this couloir. With more snow it gets filled in and smoothed off. Instead, I thought it was pretty gnarly to get down, after Fritz and Riki sideslipped all the loose snow off and left a nice surface of white ice with friendly bulges of water ice here and there. Kinda wish I'd had my boot crampons.
Fritz and Riki at our highpoint, about 4,300 vertical feet above our start. No peak as a goal for this tour, just a saddle, but anything around here is spectacular as a destination. Oh, and why not more scenic photos? Heavy clouds and some whiteout all day long.
Now, loyal readers, I know we've not been guessing that pastry. Indeed, unless in Vienna or something like that the variety of pastries we've covered over past years pretty much covers most of what I see during our normal ski travels. However, my Italian host has told me that Italy has a much better variety of pastries than even Vienna. I find that hard to believe, but will research over next few days.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
