Dolomiti

Maria and I had 10 days staying in La Villa in the Dolomites in February, with plans for ski touring, ice climbing and pizza eating.

Kofler Couloir

After a long drive the previous day, we had a bit of a lie in, a leisurely breakfast and then set off for an ice climb with a nice short walk-in, to ease ourselves into the holiday. Kofler Couloir is a 180m WI3 climb that makes its way up the left-hand side of a granite cliff just 10 minutes from the road in the Valle di Riva, near Campo Tures. It looked in slightly thin condition, but in practice there was plenty of ice, making for a great fun route. Starting the climb shortly after midday did mean that the light was fading as we sorted out our gear and had a snack at the top though, and the walk off on a winding icy path through steep woods was interesting in the dark! On the drive back to La Villa we found well-earned sustenance in a pizzeria in Badia.

 

Ski tour to Col de Locia

It was snowing heavily on the next day, which made for great skiing conditions over the following few days, but with poor visibility we thought we'd stay relatively low down and do a bit of skiing through some woods a few miles down the road from our flat.

 

Munt da Medalges ski tour

The next day dawned bright and sunny, with a big dump of fresh powder snow from the previous day, so it was time for some great skiing. Our route started off in a wooded valley, then climbed up onto the open slopes of Munt da Medalges, reaching a high point of 2,454m with spectacular views of the Geisler to the SW. Descent in the fresh powder was great fun, although I did have a fall at one point where one of my skis came off and I had to dig around for a few minutes before eventually finding it at least a metre below the surface...

 

 Resciesa Dedite ski tour

It was pretty windy the next day, but still with sunny spells and not too many clouds. We set off up Resciesa Dedite, a 2,317m peak above Ortisei, with a wide open southern flank that provided a nice descent, and more views of the Geisler (although from the opposite side to the previous day). The route down then went through some woods, where we didn't select the best line (skis had to be taken off for a little way, while we battled through deep snow and undergrowth), and eventually joining up with a red piste that led back into Ortisei. It felt strange (and ridiculously easy) to ski on a piste again after the ungroomed slopes earlier in the day.

Onda su Onda

After all that skiing we thought we'd get the sharp pointy things out again, so we found ourselves a nice 100m WI3 climb on the northern side of the Gruppo di Sella. It was a great route, but the ice was quite brittle (maybe it was too cold, around minus 10 degrees that morning?) making the climbing a little tricky & precarious at times.

After finishing our route we saw a couple of other teams climbing some harder icefalls nearby - La Spada di Damocle (WI4+) and Solo per Pochi (WI5). It all looked a bit tricky to us, and we were reassured to find out that water ice grades are generally roughly one lower than the Scottish winter equivalent technical grade, so these routes were probably 5 and 6 in the grading system that's more familiar to us.

Pralongia ski tour

We had planned to ski up Monte Sief the next day, but after driving there we saw that the sun had melted quite a bit of the snow on the west flank (our intended route), so we changed plans and headed for the NE slopes of Pralongia instead. This was a nice easy route climbing to a good picnic spot on the ridge at around 2,100m, before descending the same way.

Sassongher (failed attempt...)

We thought we'd try something different the next day, so we borrowed some snowshoes and set off towards Sassongher. The plan was to snowshoe up the easy snowy terrain, switching to crampons whenever necessary and finally scrambling up the easy via ferrata to the summit. Not really knowing what conditions we might find, we took a rope and a basic rack, on the basis that the via ferrata could easily be buried under snow and ice. In practice we had problems before we reached the via ferrata.... The path winds its way upwards, following ledges in amongst south-facing cliffs before reaching the Forcella di Sassongher at 2,435m. In summer I'm sure this would just be easy (but exposed) walking, but we found ourselves breaking trail through deep, soft, unstable snow, with steep drops below. After a while we decided it was too much like hard work, and with the bright sunshine melting the snow all the while, getting more dodgy as the day went on, so we turned back at around 2,250m.

Sas de Stria

Between the Valparola and Falzarego passes, Sas de Stria rises to 2,477m, with a bit of scrambling and via ferrata near the top, and some very interesting tunnels and trenches from WW1. We took a wander up there, and explored some of the tunnels - it seems incredible that people actually fought a war in a place like this.

Sella Ronda

We thought we'd finish the holiday with some piste skiing, and the Sella Ronda is a famous route, taking in 26km of red and blue pistes on a lap of the Gruppo di Sella. It was an enjoyable day, and felt much more civilised than the ski touring and climbing we'd been doing for the rest of the day. We were even able to stop for mulled wine and cake!