There are two parts to the ski area in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Tofana and Faloria/Cristallo. Yesterday I skied Tofana and today the plan was to ski the Faloria/Cristallo. It was about a fifteen minute drive from town to the parking lot Rio Gere. The road separates the two lifts and I kicked off the day doing a few laps before the other lift opened. I was excited to ski what looked like a killer black diamond run but getting to the top I was deflated to see that it had been decommissions. That sucks. I skied the small green/blue runs and then headed back down to the parking lot. Feeling a bit bummed as my plan was to ski this side in the morning and the other area in the afternoon.
Back across the parking lot and up the lift I started the day with which led to a traverse to the majority of the runs. I’ll just put out there that is was quite cold with a moderate wind blowing. The run from the top was a pretty good slop and fun but man did the cold cut into me. I lapped it three times and then started working my way across the mountain. I quickly realized this is a small area and after knocking off the four or so runs over here, headed into the lodge to warm up. Inside I made the call to pull the plug and head back to where I skied yesterday. There just wasn’t much terrain that I found interesting and as I mentioned earlier, it was cold. At the top of the Vitelli lift were runs Vitelli and Vitelli 2 with a closed sign. I had ski the face but really wanted to get back to the car via these other runs. A guy was hanging around and I thought maybe he would head down that way and I would follow so I waited around a bit. And sure enough he went for it and I followed close behind. Not a super challenging run but a long run that led me 70% of the way to the car where it joined a blue trail I had been on at the start of the day.
I rushed to get my gear off and started driving back down the mountain and back to the other area. Rather than drive all the way back to my hotel, I parked at the closest spot (Chalet Tofane). I hustled back up the mountain and took another run at the hardest run on the mountain (Olympia) before noticing that the large gondola was running today (unlike yesterday). So I beelined it over to Cabinovia Freccia nel Cielo (eight person gondola) which dumps off at Funivia Col Drusciè (53 person cable car). This got me on top of the world, or so it felt. With just two lifts, I was surprised by how much fun it was to ski this area and put in a bunch of runs before heading into the Chalet for lunch.
Following lunch I decided I really needed to squeeze in another Super 8 circuit. So it was a mad rush skiing down the face of this mountain, jumping from slope to slope until I reached the Skyline Cortina Gondola (eight person) over the the start of the Super 8 route. It was go time as the day was quickly slipping away and I didn’t want to get stuck unable to get back to my car. Much quicker today since I knew the way, and other than just missing a spot on the Falzarego – Lagazuoi Cable car I nailed it. I choose to skip the long traverse that requires the van shuttle and began my trek back to the parking lot. All told I did have time to sneak in another fun run about halfway back and ended up with about 15 minutes to spare. I always love a good challenge so I was very pumped to squeeze in so much today.
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