Who hasn’t Heard of Cortina? I’ve never alpine skied here, so what the hell. I’m here and it seems silly not to take advantage. One of our guides – Italian Elaina – has guided here and claims to know the mountain.I arranged lift tickets and ski rentals through my Ski.com contacts and off we went. I could have arranged a local guide but Elaina made it clear it was unnecessary. There are only three people on the trip, plus Elaina and me, who wanted to go and one last minute addition.
By the way, I’m writing this at 2 a.m. — I have to stop eating the sweats offered at dinner—they taste good but they haven’t helped me get over jet lag, if that ever happens.
From Toblach, where we were staying, near the cross country tracks we took a bus to Cortina. In Cortina, everything was super easy. Lift tickets were ready, as were ski rentals. Our Ski.com Europe guy has some contacts! The ride over reminded me of Independence Pass (about an hour over mountain roads) except there is harder core traffic, e.g. our bus and many huge trucks that passed us. Also, the peril was certainly more profound as a fall off the road would sure hurt (very briefly though). The views were amazing and there is a XC path that goes all the way to Cortina, more or less following the road we took.
Famous Mountain “3 Zinnen” Which is featured in every local photo
Once there the six of us skied fast on relatively steep runs on piste. It turns out anything hard, that isn’t groomed, is considered off piste and everything on piste is groomed. The snow was hard and fast and we skied fast, which was easy.
Wide Open and Fast with No One Around
The skiing was between Golden Horn on Aspen Highlands and Astec on Aspen Mountain in steepness (not terribly). We skied as fast as I’ve skied in a while, but the runs called out for that. In fact, those were my first alpine runs this season. Access to skiing is a pain in Cortina and it’s clear that you need a guide, especially if you want to ski the off piste stuff. A nice bit of trivia that you are reminded of getting on the cable car to the area is that Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone was filmed here. They have a bunch of posters from the movie on the walls. If you recall, it was meant to be set in Colorado and this looks very much not like Colorado. Hollywood.
The Wind was Blowing, Hard
We skied onto every lift and there was not a lift line in sight. The wind was howling but it was easy to navigate the area since it’s pretty wide open and few trees. Interestingly (well, kind of), they have a desiduous connifer which loses its needles in winter. I never knew that such a tree existed. I just thought they were dead.
I found out that some of the other folks on the trip have some impressive resumes for not only cross country skiing but running too (and academics too!). One guy (many years ago) ran a 2:35 marathon, another a 2:50 marathon and one woman ran a 3:10 marathon. My fastest was 3:18. I guess they sort of lost their interest in training at that level having burned out as younger athletes. Now it seems the masters athletes really are the ones who took up XC, like me, later.
Lunch at Refuge ?? with group whose names I have kind of learned (my jacket is on hanger in the background)
We had a fantastic lunch, the planning for which went: let’s grab a quick bite at a self-service restaurant to let’s sit down and get served some fantastic pasta for an hour plus in the mountain Refugio.
Cortina Panorama
We ended skiing early at 2:30 to catch the 3:05 bus, ran to give the skis back, and catch the bus for another harrowing ride back over the pass to Toblach (the German name) or Dobbiaco (the Italian name).
Tomorrow off to Seebach (German name) or Seefeld (Italian name). It’s snowing, again, outside as I write this at 9 p.m. French time.