Needless to say, when the bus let me off, Hotel Villa
Argentina was a welcome sight!! The large Tyrolean styled hotel is reputable,
inexpensive, clean, and entirely self-contained; it is also one of the few
hotels servicing the Cortina slopes that is ski in/ski out.
I definitely wanted some of that and promptly clicked
into my bindings and shoved off for the lift down below. A few chair rides later and I was well up the
first peak. The weather was great, the snow
was soft, the skis were fast, and very quickly I was testing the limits of my
knee brace and my asthma; I was just totally stoked to be skiing the
Dolomites!!
That’s pretty much how the whole morning went, punctuated
with a tram ride to Ra Valles where I broke for lunch. It was my only tram ride of the trip – I
don’t get car sick, sea sick or even roller coaster sick but I must confess I
do get tram sick. Being crammed into a swaying, yawing, seatless school bus, standing
squished together nose to nose and being breathed on by dozens of sweaty
European skiers doesn’t agree with me so much…. Fortunately much of the mountain
range is accessible by conventional chairlifts, many of which are modern,
high-speed detachable units.
I was nearing the end of lunch when I ran into a bit of
an episode. I suddenly felt dizzy,
nauseated, and a little disoriented, and immediately recognized these symptoms
as the on-set of altitude sickness. The
restaurant was at about 8,000 and I had been riding the Bus Tofana lift, servicing
the trails of Busc, Aquila and Camosci that lie above the Tram discharge. These cover an altitude range of up to about 9,900
feet. The average skier (even without
acclimatization) can usually tolerate those altitudes without too much drama,
but asthma reduces this threshold for me, particularly if I’m not acclimatized. I can ski up to 10,000 feet but I cannot loiter;
if I exit the chairlift and immediately ski down to 7,000 feet I’m fine, but
hanging out at an 8,000 foot restaurant after skiing the higher ranges turned
out to be not such a good idea. I
hastily paid my bill and bolted for the tram back down – I did not want to risk
skiing down in this condition. Fortunately
the tram was empty and let me off at Col Druscie, well below 6,000 feet where
the oxygen was much more to my liking.
I spent the balance of the afternoon skiing in the
Pomedes which top out at about 7,500 before heading back to the hotel, just as
some of the lifts were starting to shut down. 
Dinner is served at 7:30pm at the Argentina, I had an
outstanding mushroom Tagliatelle and a tall draft of Dolomite Birra for 13€ (that’s
right, the entire dinner was only 13 Euros) – after which I went straight to my
room and passed out for 9 hours before getting up to do it all over again.
Thursday morning dawned bright and clear on the craggy
faces of Cortina’s peaks, the clear blue sky holding the promise of a great day
of skiing.
After the complementary continental breakfast I spent the
morning exploring new trails over in Colfiere and Socrepes, following the sun
where I could to stay in soft snow. The
modern Cortina lift system (unlike some of the lifts I used at Davos) made it
easy to charge down the mountain, catch a chair for a quick ride back up to a
different trail and head off in a new direction.
By 11:00 I was ready for my coffee break at the caffe bar
near Socrepes “Ra Freza”. It was the
typical on-mountain coffee, drink and snack shack with an open outdoor sun deck
facing a terrific view. In all
directions. Life is good when you have
your caffe Americana latte and apple strudel in the backdrop of the magnificent
Dolomites, while German folk music plays over the speakers and all the cooks,
waitresses and baristas are all clapping, dancing, and singing along to the
tunes.
I finished the day out at Rumerlo, returning to the hotel
at about 2:00 to return my skis, collect my gear and grab a quick burger before
catching my first bus back for the trip home.
The train ride home was enjoyable because it was still
daylight when I left and I could take in the panoramic views. It had a feel of what you might imagine old
time European travel must have been like; a single ribbon of track winding over
a narrow path etched into the sides of snowcapped Alps, the train crossing over
steep gorges and rivers below, then disappearing into long tunnels blasted deep
into the heart of mountains. Leaving the
Alps by train felt like going back in time. And I lucked out as my return trip only required 2
trains, the last one being a sleek aero high speed model with few stops. Several times I noticed the monitors
indicated 179kmh (about 110mph), which helped shorten the trip home
considerably to only 7 hours.
My trip to Cortina d’Ampezzo was truly outstanding!! I could easily have spent another 2 days
skiing the remainder of the resort, or used some of that time for a bus ride to
other peaks 20-30 minutes away. Good
snow, good weather, good lift system, and an unbelievable setting!!
Reflections on
skiing Cortina d’Ampezzo:
- I have skied all over the Rockies in Colorado, all over
the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, skied every mountain at Lake Tahoe, and skied
the eastern Swiss Alps – I have never skied a place as beautiful as Cortina;
I’ve never skied mountains before that even look like the Dolomites.
- Renting a 4wd SUV
and driving to Cortina is much
faster than public transportation from Florence. I could easily have saved 3 or more hours
each way, however, costs go up considerably.
SUV rental costs are 50€+ per day, plus tolls (probably
40€ round trip), plus fuel (diesel is $8.80 US per gallon, gas is
$9.15 US). For a minimum of 500 mile
round trip, fuel costs alone are at
least $250 US. In contrast, my all in round trip costs for
public transportation (5 trains, 4 buses) was about $105€ ($141 US).
- I need to round up some ski buddies – my current acquaintances
were all met at the local pub while watching NFL football. None of them ski (none of them ride
motorcycles either…) so I need to make some more friends. This makes skiing more fun – and splits the
cost of driving too.
- Hotel Villa Argentina was the perfect choice for
me. 65€ bought me a
small, clean single-bed room, complimentary breakfast, and ski slopes in the
backyard.
My short trip did not allow time for the attractions of
the town of Cortina – my sole mission was to ski, eat, sleep, and ski (a pretty
good plan btw…). However, had I stayed a
couple of more days (without having a car to get to town) I would have made
different plans to stay in town and bus it to the mountains.
- Angie and I will definitely
go to Cortina in the spring or summer to stay in the town and to hike the
Dolomites. I can only imagine how
magnificent that will be for us.
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