The Alps are bigger mountains than the Rockies or Sierra. Sad fact of life for Americans.
We scheduled our food and cappuccino trip to spend a few days at La Skieda, the 25th and perhaps final year of this Italian telemark festival. However, they said this was, so far, the fourth "last year". Wow. Talk about hundreds of damn fine knee droppers. These were no flower-smelling granola crunchers; they were damn good and damn serious about their skiing.
Livigno is a valley deep in the alps, in Italy but actually north of the crest, draining into the Black Sea (eventually via the Danube) rather than the Mediterranean. For centuries it was isolated in winter, then they built a tunnel as part of a hydro project...and then they built a ski resort. What an amazing place for a ski resort. A long, flat valley sandwiched between two huge ridges with above treeline bowls. I don't know anyplace that has a higher lift capacity....four gondolas...high speed, with some carrying 10 or 12 per car. (I'm not sure cause they were never full.) Add to that a dozen or more high speed sixes and quads, most with bubble covers,,,and you have some astounding uphill capacity...but it was maybe at 5% during our visit. Euroids generally stop skiing in late March.
Here's a shot of the town with the bigger ski ridge on the background. Most of the skiing is in the left third of the photo, above treeline.

We scheduled our food and cappuccino trip to spend a few days at La Skieda, the 25th and perhaps final year of this Italian telemark festival. However, they said this was, so far, the fourth "last year". Wow. Talk about hundreds of damn fine knee droppers. These were no flower-smelling granola crunchers; they were damn good and damn serious about their skiing.
Livigno is a valley deep in the alps, in Italy but actually north of the crest, draining into the Black Sea (eventually via the Danube) rather than the Mediterranean. For centuries it was isolated in winter, then they built a tunnel as part of a hydro project...and then they built a ski resort. What an amazing place for a ski resort. A long, flat valley sandwiched between two huge ridges with above treeline bowls. I don't know anyplace that has a higher lift capacity....four gondolas...high speed, with some carrying 10 or 12 per car. (I'm not sure cause they were never full.) Add to that a dozen or more high speed sixes and quads, most with bubble covers,,,and you have some astounding uphill capacity...but it was maybe at 5% during our visit. Euroids generally stop skiing in late March.
Here's a shot of the town with the bigger ski ridge on the background. Most of the skiing is in the left third of the photo, above treeline.
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