Patience is a virtue

It’s been 69 days since we arrived in Arabba and in that time a grand total of about 15cm of natural snow has fallen from the skies.  And yet, we could have skied for miles and miles every single day if we’d wished, such is the extent of snow making and the vast network of inter-connected trails on Planet Dolomiti.  We still have only skied 231 lifts out of a possible 450!

But we confess.   We really do like to indulge in a drop of champagne powder snow from time to time and we’ve been “on the wagon” and suffering severe withdrawal symptoms these last two months.  The symptoms of which have been further exacerbated by endless Facebook photos of deep snow in the US, Japan and the even more humiliating 30cm of snow at Cardrona in January!!!

Hooray!  Finally, today our patience has been rewarded.   Bright cold sunshine and about 50cm of fresh even snow has fallen.

In planning our tour today, we took a very conservative approach given Grade 3 avalanche warnings and also our uncertainty about how good the base was going to be.  On the south side (sunny faces), much of the snow had fallen on bare ground.  Fortunately, Gra’s reconnoitre ski tour last week came in handy, he knew that the area around the Col Toron, at 2100m above Arabba still had snow, with much of it protected on its north facing slopes.

There’s not much more to say this evening…. other than the pictures tell the story.  We went pretty hard I have to say and we are this evening…officially “rooted units!!”.    Back out amongst it tomorrow!  Many thanks to the Planet Dolomiti Snow God for rewarding our patience.

First Tracks 7 Feb

On our way back up from first morning run

Our tracks 7 – Feb

Ski Tour 7 Feb

Morning lines off East bench of Col Toron