On Friday, drove down to Innsbruck after work to meet up with Talltone, Masque, Degage and HarrisontheRabbit, who'd driven from the UK! Then we all drove on to Arabba in the morning. Talltone and I were on the piste by lunchtime for a good half day skiing.
This was the first proper test of my new K2 Rictor skis, although I'd skied them for 2 days in Austria a few weeks prior. Nice skis. They may be "All Mountain", but they still go quickly on piste, and edge to edge is pretty impressive too.
Sun
The first day was an easy ski out to San Cassiano and La Villa with a group of about 10 (mostly) 1st time birthday bashers. So it was basically me that did the guiding.
Mon
After an easy first day or so, it was time to get a bit more adventurous. So I joined SteveM, BFG and JK on a trip up to Marmolada to do the 1 mile vertical triple cable car ride followed by 1 mile vertical red run back down. It definitely is a lot better if you go reasonably early. Less queue, less crowds and less cut-up piste. Then we headed back and did a complete Sella Ronda orange (clockwise) circuit.
Tues
Another long-ish day with SteveM and BFG, but this time we headed out to Santa Cristina and did the long 10km run down in to Ortisei. Brilliant run.
Wed
A slow day playing around between Arabba, Corvara and Selva. Followed by dinner on the mountain, and skiing back down to Arabba with LED lights.
Thu
Went for another Sella Ronda green (anti-clockwise) circuit with Surfski, Lynn, et al. Stopped off in Colfosco to find a geocache with Surfski. Bumped in to a German guy just afterwards, who was also looking for the cache.
Fri
Last day with most of the snowHeads. Went caching with Surfski again to find 2 caches in Corvara. Found 1 OK, but the other was MIA. Then we headed over to La Villa and then Santa Croce to meet up with another group for lunch, and then skied back.
Sat
Since we knew there'd be massive traffic on the road out of the Sella Ronda down to the Autostrada, and there was no real rush back, the 5 of us that drove down (plus Mike Rainman) decided to get a crafty bonus half day on the piste. So we skiied over to Canazei, caught the bus 5 minutes along the valley to Alba to play around on empty pistes for a few hours, then skied back. After that it was the loooooong drive home with a stop-over at Bregenz.
Can't wait to go back again!
Stats for the week were (after adjusting for final run of the day to Arabba):
- 148 lifts
- 49334 vertical metres
- 277km slope length estimation
Pictures can be seen here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/SHBB2011Arabba
