Past report: Italy

[HeadAddict]

It appears this forum is primarily geared towards the North American crowd, so I thought I'd add my two cents from the other side of the pond. As many of you know, Europe saw a ton of snow last winter. We spent a week in February in the Dolomites and we had 3 feet of powder. While the lines can get long at certain times of the year, we didn't see too much of that this time around. Over all, it was a good trip, the highlight being all that white stuff. Our biggest complaints were unrelated to the crowds, however. 1) The Italians don't appear to like to fall down, hence that even up on the glaciers and the blacks, the trails are flattened out and all of the fun removed in the process. Which brings us to 2) They frown upon off-piste skiing. While that meant we could get first tracks under the lift lines at 2pm, we were also subjected to the smartly-dressed folks on the chair yelling at us for doing so. Pluses and minuses, all around. This year we'll be trying something a bit more extreme (I'm openly taking suggestions from your recent experiences), in hopes of finding an angle steeper than 10 degrees. However, for anyone interested in magnificent views and (hopefully to be repeated) surreal powder, Madonna di Campiglio/Folgarida and Marilleva (900/1400) have something to offer for beginner through to upper-intermediate. If you want any more specifics, don't hesitate to ping me.

 

[Tony Crocker]

We would greatly appreciate any reports from skiing in the Alps. As just mentioned in another thread, the easterners in particular should be paying more attention.

The trip reporting on this forum is very high in quality but spotty by region. Increasing breadth of coverage should be one of admin's top priorities.

 

[Admin]

Increasing breadth of coverage should be one of admin's top priorities.

Easier said than done. That requires folks like HA to see these voids not as an indication of a forum slant, but rather as an opportunity that needs to be filled. Keep it up, HA!

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Thanks for the report. Photos from your trip would be welcome.

I've never skied in Italy, mainly in the Arlberg (Lech/St. Anton). You can ski anywhere you want there, but without local knowledge or a guide (I saw dozens of them every day), anything other than close-in side-country lines can get you into trouble.

Admin, get to work on those top priorities!

 

[HeadAddict]

Thanks for the report. Photos from your trip would be welcome.

I will certainly upload a couple of photos to give you an idea of what it was like, however I need to condense them first (200KB seems a bit small for a limit, btw), so let me get that done and I'll be back with some shots.

 

[Admin]

1024x768 at 15% compression will generally yield a JPEG of about 185 KB, so you can post a fairly spectacular picture within the 200KB limit. Remember, bandwidth comes out of my own pocket! :wink:

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Is uploading pix to a website like Photo Bucket and then pasting the URLs here considered poor internet form?

I understand that it's not cool to upload them to, say, another ski forum, and then use their bandwidth to post them here, but for a photo-sharing website that exists to, euh, share photos.... what is the protocol?

 

[Admin]

Is uploading pix to a website like Photo Bucket and then pasting the URLs here considered poor internet form?

I understand that it's not cool to upload them to, say, another ski forum, and then use their bandwidth to post them here, but for a photo-sharing website that exists to, euh, share photos.... what is the protocol?

Nope, that's cool. The only potential pitfall is if the photo sharing site prevents hotlinking, for if they do the images won't be displayed here. As a result, make sure that hotlinking is allowed before going forward with this method.

 

[HeadAddict]

Sorry for the delay, but as promised here are a couple of photos from last December's natural dump of pow-pow in the Dolomites (Madonna di Campiglio, Folgarida and Marilleva) in the Trento region of Italy. Beautiful conditions, but not overly challenging as the Italians have flattened out most of the good stuff and they frown upon off-piste skiing (not to say it isn't possible).