(Madonna di Campiglio, Italy)

Our final two days of skiing were a roller-coaster of skiing emotions.  The second-last day started with soft snow under a brilliant sun: while the powder wasn’t flying, there were  lots of stops for photographs and sunscreen.

And yet, something wasn’t quite right.  After skiing the Pancugolo piste, we felt unusually warm.   We looked up at the chairlift thermometer and it said…24.5’C!   I didn’t think it ever would be too hot to ski, but we were definitely approaching that point.  We actually moved over to the Pinzolo area shortly afterwards, where some north-facing slopes would keep the temperatures at a more manageable level.

But, for every brilliant day in the sun, there are consequences.  While we awoke to more sunshine on our final day of skiing, there was a sense of unease.  We found our way to the bottom of the Miramonti chairlift…only to be shooed away by the staff.  We tried the nearby Cinque Laghi chairlift…rejected again.   What was going on?

Mass confusion reigned in the lift line.  There was the occasional shouted message in Italian, but nothing in the way of official communications.  Eventually, a kind gentleman translated the sad news for us:  even though the weather was perfect in the valley, the surrounding mountains were all being pummeled by ferocious winds.  It was too dangerous to ride the lifts.  And nobody knew when (or if) the lifts would reopen.

It was hard to believe the ski area was closed.  We eventually decided to do something that skiers rarely have the chance to do:  enjoy a beverage at a downtown outdoor cafe.  It was difficult at first, but we finally started to get the hang of it.   Three hours (!) later, we noticed that the lifts were starting to move.  Nobody was on them, but there had to be a reason.  Just in case, we ran back to the bottom of the Cinque Laghi chairlift.   And finally, at 12:30 p.m., they started letting skiers board the lift.  Game on!

After all that, the conditions were…abysmal.  While there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all afternoon, yesterday’s soft snow had turned into hard ice.  And the high winds had blown any loose snow cover far away from the pistes.  There was absolutely nothing for our skis to grip.  Our excitement at being allowed on the lifts began to dissipate.  It wasn’t time to ski:  it was time to skate!

And yet, despite the horrid conditions, we stayed on the slopes as long as we could.  The lifts stopped at 4:30 p.m. but we all knew that this was the end of another week of skiing.  Even with the treacherous ice, it was still great to be up in the mountains.  We must have waited for 15 minutes at the mid-mountain Patascoss junction before finally starting our descent to Madonna di Campiglio.  Sometime after 5:00 p.m., we made our final turns and another week of skiing in the Dolomites was history.

While this is the last skiing post from Madonna di Campiglio, there’s still more Italian food coming up!

(Madonna di Campiglio, Italy)

For our fourth day of skiing in Madonna di Campiglio, we set our sights on the only directly connected resort we had not yet visited:  Folgarida.

The trek to Folgarida was not very challenging from a skiing perspective but it was still a pleasure because of the brilliant sunshine along the way.  There were a few lift lines at Malghet Aut and the pistes were rather busy there, possibly because one of the main pistes was closed for a slalom race.  Nonetheless, we enjoyed some easy cruising in the sun and were looking forward to a lunch to match the conditions on the slopes.

Some inspired map-reading led to the discovery of Rifugio Solander, at the top of the fun intermediate piste running down Val Mastellina.  The rifugio was on top of a sunny crest but hidden enough behind a generic-looking cafeteria that most people weren’t even aware of it.  It looked promising, and there was a table open at the edge of the balcony.  Would this lunch live up to the expectations that had been set so high in Cortina d’Ampezzo and Val Gardena?

Indeed it did!  The warm dishes were delicious and, just as importantly after the past couple of days, still warm by the time we got to our table.  There was also an assortment of appealing fresh plates of local meats and cheeses:  we had the luxury of too many desirable choices.    We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here and vowed to return on our sixth and final day of skiing.

After lunch, we did some more high-speed laps in the Val Mastellina and decided to take on another piste with a warning sign.  It was called “Little Grizzly” and the reason for the black rating was immediately apparent:  about 50 meters from the top, it dropped off quickly with a 67% incline!  Even so, there was enough snow on it to make it a much more enjoyable experience than our ill-fated journey down Spinale Direttissima a couple of days before.   We felt a sense of vindication, as we could actually link nice parallel turns here despite the steepness.

After that, we hung around the Marilleva region for a while and checked out some of the pistes that we had missed on our first day of skiing.  The crowds were much sparser than at Folgarida and we slowly made our way back to our base camp at Madonna di Campiglio.

As always, we ended with the challenging Amazzonia piste and finished our day with a  hearty appetite.  Coming up:  details on our final two days of skiing, as well as the special dinner of local specialties put on by our hotel.