Overall: Stupendous.

I was going to leave it at that, but I thought I’d better explain my rating! The Dolomites is the most astoundingly majestic alpine range I have ever seen. No wonder it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Dolomiti Superski region is so big there is no one single map of the area that fits in all the ski areas and mountains on one page – above is a map of just the Alta Badia region where we were based!

The Dolomiti SuperSki region stretches in, up, over and around endless mountain peaks serving up 1,200kms of superb skiing accessed via 450 lifts and across 12 interlinked ski areas: Gitschberg Jochtal – Brixen / Plan Kronplatz / 3 Zinnen / Val Gardena – Seiser Alm / Alta Badia /Arabba – Marmolada / Cortina – D’Ampezzo /Civetta / Alpe Lusia – San Pellegrino / Val di Fiemme – Obereggen / San Martino di Castrozza – Passo Rolle. This variety means that the Dolomites is not so much a ski resort as a series of cute, low key villages each with it’s own link to a ski region ( Arabba, Colfosco, Corvara, San Cassiano, Saint Christina etc.) and some larger, more established towns including Bolzano / Bozen, the provincial capital of South Tyrol, Bressanone / Brixen, the oldest town in Tyrol, the mediaeval towns of Chiusa / Klausen or Brunico, Bruneck, the centre of the Puster Valley and the rather showy Cortina d’Ampezzo. We stayed in Corvara just beyond the larger service town of Badia and a fantastic town to access the famous ski circuits – the Sella Ronda and the Grand Guerre – and the magnificent Marmolada glacier. Despite all these towns and ski areas, the Dolomiti SuperSki feels like one big endless interlinked ski area that’s really well signposted and easy to navigate (it probably helped that we skied with a friend, Massimo, who is a local who showed us around!)

Highlights:

Skiing: the Marmolada glacier

Dining: Delicious, affordable food (barely soup and the local specialty desert which is called Kaiserschmarren) from all the Refugio’s dotted around the slopes!

Tips: If you can afford a guide or have a friend willing to ski with you around the Dolomiti Superski it makes a big difference and takes the stress off navigating.

Getting around

We drove from Kitzbühel to Corvara up through the Brenner pass and along some pretty windy, hairpin roads, under chairlifts and into our village of Corvara – just past the town of Badia. We were advised to use a car to get to the Dolomites as the other option requires trains and multiple buses plus a car makes it easier to drive to neighbouring towns for dinner or drinks or to listen to live music (which we did in San Cassiano one night).

There’s the standard two options for getting to the ski lifts: bus or walk. The bus requires a ticket so we chose to walk around 600m on well-marked pedestrian paths. We rented a locker at the Boe lift base to store our skis, boots and helmets (the locker was heated -so it was easy to put on boots each morning).

 Skiing highlights 

There are two famous ‘ski routes’ in the Dolomites and they are the Sellaronda and the Grand Guerre. You can do them clockwise or anti-clockwise – and they are clearly marked with colour coded signs.

Sellaronda

This fantastic ski loop takes you over four Dolomite passes (Passo Campolongo, Passo Pordoi, Passo Sella and Passo Gardena), around the Sella group of mountains and through the Ladin valleys of Val Gardena, Alta Badia, Arabba and Val di Fassa, through the villages of Arabba, Canazei, Selva, Corvara (our village) and Colfosco, covering a distance of 40 km, 27 km of which are skiing on incredible runs.

We started at the Boe gondola lift base (the gondolas here are yellow or orange and egg shaped and super chic) to do the Sella Ronda – anti-clockwise as the clockwise was shut (for avalanche blasting due to the 50cm of snow that fell the day before – on us!). 

Some of the amazing slopes include the Gran Risa slope, which is used for the world cup Super G and is considered one of the most technically and demanding slopes in the alpine ski circuit. It is 1,255 m long and has a gradient of 69%. plus the Sasslong slope which is where they hold the Val Gardena World cup downhill race. We skied both  – well you’d probably say I slipped and skidded down the Gran Risa as it was early in the morning  and partly in shade and very icy (and scary).

You are surrounded by gob-smacking views of soaring dolomite and granite rocks and distant rings of snow-capped alps all day. It is hard to take your gaze away from the landscape – to focus on the runs which are a real mix of sleek steep slopes, bumps, powder and some nice mixed groomed corduroy. The runs are super long and we were lucky to not have many people on the runs – probably due to one direction of the circuit being closed and the road in to the Dolomites being closed due to snow.

Marmolada and the Grand Guerra and Falzarego-Lagazuoi

We had a mega day that combined three Dolomites highlights: The Marmolada glacier, the Grand Guerra ski route and the Falzarego pass-Lagazuoi mountain peak. It was an insane day that beggars belief both in distance covered, sheer grandeur and the quality of snow and skiing.  We felt like tiny ants scrambling across a giant lemon meringue pie, gobbling up the peaks and plunging into the valleys only to go up another even bigger peak. We skied for 8 hours over 40kms of runs across 5 ranges on the most magnificent snow (50 cm fell the day before).

Our first mission was to conquer the Marmolada which is known as Queen of the Dolomites. It is the highest mountain in the Dolomites, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is not composed of dolomite like the surrounding mountains, but of grey limestone from coral reefs – Marmolada limestone – which came to land topsy turvy on the roof of the world after a massive volcanic eruption. The Marmolada glacier runs between the Punta Penia (3343m) and Punta Rocca (3265mt) and you can ski 12km down its face on a slope called  La Bellunese, into the  village of  Arabba. The day we took this run was sublime as 50cm of snow fell the day before, the mountain pass was closed so there were few people around and it was clear skies. I’d honestly say it was the best snow conditions and ski run I have ever experienced.

There are elements of the Grand Guerra incorporated into the Marmolada – as there’s a war museum at the Marmolada. The famous’ Grand Guerra”  is an 80-km ski route that winds around the bases of seven mountain peaks: Civetta, Pelmo, Tofane, Lagazuoi, Conturines, Settsass, Sassongher and Sella and there are plaques dotted around commemorating the many tunnels and caves dug by Italian soldiers during the First World War.

From Arabba you need to catch two busses to get through the valley and up and over the the  Falzarego Pass at 2100 m to reach Mt. Lagazoui . We caught the first bus to Alleghe then a chairlift to the next bus that would take us through the Falzarego pass to the Lagazoui cable car –  only to discover when we reached the second bus area that the Falzarego pass was closed as they were still clearing it after the big snowfalls. A local guy in a van offered to take us another way around but we ended up following a massive snow plough up towards the pass and were delighted to see men jump out of the plough at the entry to the pass and take down the red Closed sign and replace it with a green ‘Open’ sign. We were the first car through and had to drive around a few other road barriers which had yet been removed, to access the Lagazoui cable car which took us to the Falzarego-Lagazuoi ski area and the peak of Mt. Lagazoui – where we enjoyed more beautiful views from the terrace.

From the peak of Lagazoui you can take the 9km incredibly long ski down the stunning Armentarola red run, through the pristine Dolomite landscape of the Fanes-Sennes-Prags Nature park. At the bottom, your ‘ski lift’ back to Alta Badia is a rope tow pulled by draught horses for $3 euro. You simply hang on to a knot in the rope, and the horses trot -at quite a pace-  across a gentle uphill section back to the Alta Badia lifts. There’s a half dozen lifts more lifts to get back to Corvara and we just made it on the last ride back in at 5pm and had apres Aperols at the base of Corvara for an Aperol to toast the most mind-boggling ski day we have ever had. 

Alta Badia – La Villa – La Val

These ski areas have some good black runs (Gran Risa in La Villa and Vallon-Boè in Corvara) as well as the happening Club Moritzino Mountain hut at the mountain station of the Piz La Ila cable car in La Villa. Most afternoons they have a DJ and dancing in the snow – if you like that kind of thing!

The far flung area of La Val has the small highland area of La Crusc/Santa Croce, located at the foot of the magnificent Santa Croce mountains where there’s a little church and the Santa Croce Rifugio  which you can hike up to for lunch or just to admire the views and the imposing mountains that rear up behind the church and apparently glow orange at sunset.

Eating highlights:

This is the only ski area where we did not have an apartment with a kitchen, so we had to eat out each night and day – so I’ll list a couple of places not to be missed.

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