 Poster: A snowHead
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Fri 1 Mar - Campiglio (day 3)
With moderate rain / snow forecast for the south end of the ski area but something a bit lighter further north, we spent most of the time above Folgarida / Marilleva. We were mostly in the cloud, though generally the fog wasn't too bad compared with some of the days earlier in the week.
Up the Daolasa gondola to discover ~10cm of fresh snow at the top (more than the 2cm forecast), with a rain / snow boundary fluctuating between 1600 and 2000m over the day. Constant precipitation all day - not particularly heavy but enough to keep the top pistes refreshed and our gloves / bottoms wet! Snow on the pistes was surprisingly lovely - great powder at the top, a very short sticky zone at mid mountain (just above the snow / rain limit), then wet but fast snow below (in the rain). Unsurprisingly given the weather, there were fewer people about, with only a handful of very short queues and fewer moguls developing. 100% of pistes on the Val di Sole side are now open, so we ticked off the remaining ones (including excellent blacks down to both Folgarida 1300 and Marilleva 1400) and repeated some of our favourites from Wednesday. Doss della Pesa was finally also open with great snow and deserted pistes, probably because the chair up there is slow and without a bubble.
Black 1 (Nera Folgarida)
Black 1
Black 26 (Nera Marilleva)
Black 26
Gondola up from Marilleva 900, seen from blue 28 (Skiweg Albarè)
Red 20 (Doss della Pesa)
Blue 11 (Orso Bruno)
Folgarida mid mountain hub - always busy!
A long lunch to dry out a bit at Il Guscio by the Folgarida 1400 gondola base. €13 for a burger with speck, local cheese, mushrooms and chips, €16 for a porchetta dish with potatoes, €9 for a Sicilian bread and lard antipasto, €4 bombardino, €5 calimero - finally getting around to some of the naughty Italian treats! Portion sizes were very generous but the main courses was a little salty.
Antipasti, bombardino, calimero
After lunch we headed across to Cinque Laghi in Madonna di Campiglio, where the top Patascoss and Pancugulo lifts were finally open. We were the only people skiing these runs - all but one of which had been unpisted - so loads of deep powder to make a mess of  Black 90 (Pancugulo) is genuinely steep on the right hand side near the bottom.
Patascoss sector from black 87 (Canalino 5 Laghi)
Pancugolo chair & black 90 (Pancugolo)
Red 88 F.I.S. 3-Tre
Then a few more runs here and there before rushing back to Daolasa in time for the 16.40 last gondola download. Manky weather but a surprisingly enjoyable day, and only ended up damp rather than soaked 
Edit: dinner from the local pizza takeaway which was actually open tonight. Medium pizzas in the €4-10 range (smaller / bigger also available), reasonably tasty.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 8-03-24 15:34; edited 2 times in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Sat 2 Mar - Campiglio (day 4)
Our last day at Madonna di Campiglio-Folgarida-Marilleva-Pinzolo today. The limited free parking at Daolasa is further reduced by a market on Saturdays, so we decided to park at Folgarida instead, which also allows you to ski a bit later at the end of the day. Similar driving time, but with several hairpins up to 1450m, so inadvisable on a snowy day. Today's weather: mostly foggy with light to moderate snow above ~1700m, rain below. We grabbed one of the last spaces in a free car park 2-mins' walk from the junction of blues 3 & 15 and skied down to the gondola for 8.30am opening.
Good morning Folgarida! Blue 3 (Belvedere)
We hadn't been to Pinzolo yet, so headed there for most of the day. A fairly long ski across via Monte Spolverino, Monte Vigo, the Pradalago sector, Cinque Laghi and then a very long, three-stage gondola.
Pinzolo's slopes are nearly all wooded, of red gradient and between 1600 & 2100m in altitude. We were therefore generally dropping below the rain line on many pistes, or at least into the "wet snow" zone, so the lack of weather protectors on most of the chairlifts here was a bit annoying; some of them are quite slow too. We started off in the bowl on the northeast side of Doss del Sabion summit.
Blue 111 (Clump)
Grual-Zapel chair
Red 104 Grual Rossa
On the west, "town-facing" side of the summit, there's a brand new gondola with imposing base and top stations which are rather heavy on the concrete - perhaps they haven't finished decorating it yet? A gondola also comes up from Pinzolo village (no piste down), plus a second from Tulot, with a couple of closed blacks down in this direction. They finish exceptionally low down (850m) and I suspect the heavy precipitation has been mostly rain at this altitude and has finished them off.
New Doss del Sabion gondola
Black 102 (Competition)
Being the southernmost part of the ski area, Pinzolo has borne the brunt of the southerly storms this week, and some higher runs were also closed (too much snow), and pisteurs were working all over the mountain digging out fencing, or increasing space under chairlift pylons to ensure chairs didn't pass to close to the ground. Snow surface conditions were really nice again: powder high up, then wet but fast snow lower down. Some pistes were relatively busy but no queues. Highlights were two of the longer reds - 101 (Rododendro) and 104 (Grual Rossa) - though the couple of open blacks were fun too.
Lunch at Malga Cioca near the top of the Tulot gondola, where we were lucky to get a table. €14 carpaccio starter, €14 venison pasta (other pastas under €10), €19 for a combined primi / secondi consisting of beef goulash, dumplings, grilled cheese and potato rosti. All very good with friendly service - the slightly higher prices probably justified by the isolated location.
Carpaccio
Venison pasta
A few quiet but damp runs around Malga Cioca to try after lunch.
Red 107 (Cioca 1) from the Malga Cioca-Zapel chair
At ~2.30pm we crossed back to Madonna di Campiglio.
Grual-Monte Grual chair
Long gondola back to Madonna di Campiglio
We did a few runs off Monte Spinale in quite heavy snow but slightly better visibility, then returned to the Val di Sole side.
Black 74 (Nube d'Oro), Monte Spinale
Some very thick fog on the ski down to Marilleva, but the cloud finally broke temporarily on the way up Orso Bruno, letting us get a full run without any fog for the only time today: the Little Grizzly black.
Black 37 (Little Grizzly)
Orso Bruno chair
Marilleva 1400
A good day's skiing despite the weather and we stayed out all the way until 4.50pm. I've become slightly used to skiing in rain and fog, so it's not bothering me as much as it did earlier in the trip!  Dinner at home planned for tonight. Last day skiing tomorrow... 
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Fri 8-03-24 16:01; edited 1 time in total
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Sun 3 Mar - Lavarone
Piste map here.
Check out day from our Airbnb in Coredo. Today was our last skiing day and we had to return our hire equipment to the shop in Folgaria afterwards, so we planned to ski at nearby Lavarone to minimise the amount of driving. 75 mins' drive: down the valley to Trento, through a series of tunnels to Levico Terme, then a very narrow mountain road with numerous tight hairpins, snaking around cliffsides up to the Bertoldi lift base.
Lavarone forms part of the shared Alpe Cimbra lift pass area with larger Folgaria, but its ski area is separate and you can purchase a cheaper lift pass for just the local area. Due to another poor forecast (light rain to ~1600m - though not as bad as the heavy rain that was modelled a few days ago) and the small size of the ski area, we just purchased a 4hr lift pass (€36).
The ski area is quite unusual. There are only six main lifts, but five of them (all slow chairs) form a long west-east chain across gently undulating wooded terrain, giving a surprisingly decent sense of travel. The piste map doesn't illustrate this well, distorting real piste orientations into a corner of the bigger Alpe Cimbra picture. With heights in the range 1180-1550m, skiable vertical is small, but gradients are often gentle so pistes are longer than you might expect. Some pics from the Laghetto-Ust sector:
Blue 11 (Cogole)
Laghetto-Ust chair
Red 10 (Ust)
There's a strange middle area where the ski runs follow the shore of a lake, passing an enormous abandoned hotel complex. The terrain is so flat that there are magic carpets in each direction, coupled with nearly flat blue tracks to get you across to the respective next lift bases.
Skiing past the abandoned hotel
Some of the blue runs are really lovely - quite wide and with consistent gradients, but with flowing corners through the trees. An ideal destination for beginners perhaps? There are only a handful of steeper pistes: 3 reds and a fun black, all worth repeating. Some pics from the far (east) end of the area:
Laghetto-Virgo Maria chair
Blue 17 (Torion)
Red 18 (Malga Rivetta)
Alpe di Vezzena, at the far end of the lift chain
Vezzena-Virgo Maria chair & blue 22 (Vezzena)
The landscape felt quite Scottish - reminiscent of Royal Deeside - and we spent some time (during a short chairlift stoppage) watching a woodpecker near Alpe di Vezzena. The weather was also quite Scottish. We were lulled into a false sense of security by a single, cloudy but dry descent with good visibility, before the heavens opened and it rained quite heavily for about half an hour (sleet only at the very top), soaking us almost immediately Then the rain lightened but thick, damp fog rolled in, which wasn't much better. Conditions then gradually improved, and the sun came out just for the last few runs before our lift pass ran out!
Red 5 (Tablat) back at the west, Bertoldi lift base
Tablat chair from Bertoldi
Tablat chair
Snow was the same wet but fast consistency as we had for the last couple of days in Madonna di Campiglio, and the pistes were mostly empty. All runs except a tiny linking blue were open, though a couple of sections are becoming thin, including part of blue 17 (Torion) which is a key link in the chain. There has obviously been significant rain at this altitude following the snow earlier in the week, and the snowpack is not as deep as I was expecting.
Our 4 hours expired at 12.40pm. Back to the car / toilets to change out of our wet ski gear. A wadge of paper towels stuffed both inside and outside my underwear to try to keep my jeans dry  - and everything else laid out across the back of the car to try and ensure it dries a bit before tomorrow's flight.
Final run - blue 6 (Le Stock)
We drove around to Pizzeria La Lanterna in Costa di Folgaria for lunch. Massive pizzas in the €7-14 range were the best we've had on this trip; mine with bresaola, Cimbrian ham, pepperoni, rocket, grana shavings and a couple of other things was particularly lovely.
Small man with massive pizzas
We had a quick look around Folgaria where the sun had dared to show its face for once, then dropped off skis after the shop reopened for the afternoon at 3.30pm. The fairly elderly owner singlehandedly runs the shop in the morning and afternoon, and teaches skiing for two hours over lunch! He was grumbling that the temperature all winter has been too high.
Folgaria
We're now driving back towards Milan, where we've booked a room for the night close to the airport. Clouds are mostly off the peaks surrounding the Adige valley for the first time in 11 days, with the back of Monte Bondone and the pistes of Brentonico Ski (which we didn't get round to visiting due to weather constraints) both easily visible.
Fave run in Lavarone: Blue 17 (Torion), unhurriedly weaving through woodland.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Sat 9-03-24 20:38; edited 6 times in total
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Another terrific report, @denfinella, thanks. Such an enticing mixture of skiing and food. I can almost taste your lunchtime pizza. Few people can put such thought into planning a trip.
Sorry it's been so soggy. Gives the lie to generalised claims elsewhere that "Italy" is being blanketed in snow to low altitudes.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@denfinella, thank you for another tremendous report. Sorry that the weather didn't smile on you a bit more. I have a feeling there may be fewer photos for us to enjoy this time. Safe journey home!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@denfinella, great read thanks for shining a light once again on a lot of areas we'd likely never hear of otherwise
I gather there is a decathlon near Bergamo airport which rents skis if that helps you in future doing a few resorts without looping back to drop skis off on return. Said to be cheap but presumably nowhere near as cheap as you found!
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@Origen, @Hurtle, @8611, thanks. Weather was definitely a bit rubbish for skiing in and generally not the powder fest that some might have imagined. But we skied for all ten days, and had fun on all of them
There will still be photos, just not many sunny ones. We waited for brief moments when the fog lifted a bit to take most of them!
I looked at renting from from Decathlon in Italy before (especially from the Lecco store for our Valtellina trip last year) but they were more expensive than hiring in resort. Also, if you find there's a problem with your kit during your first day skiing, it's a long way to drive back if you need to swap an item.
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Mon 4 Mar - departure day
Checked into our Airbnb in Legnano (near Malpensa airport) around 8.45pm last night. The room (in a shared house with shared bathrooms) was only £35 but I wouldn't stay there again; it was cold, spartan and not particularly clean. The main guest bathroom just had a hole in the wall above the bath where the shower probably used to be, and I wasn't sure which of the towels were actually washed. Ended up using what I think was supposed to be the hosts' bathroom, but there was no-one to ask (or to care) anyway We also had to wait 25 minutes for someone to show up when we first arrived. Breakfast was maybe supposed to be provided, but we couldn't find it anywhere.
Then a 25-min drive to the airport for 8am, drop off the car, shuttle bus to Terminal 2, bag drop, security, and a long queue for passport control. Flight appears to be on time (edit: 30 mins delay in the end). There are some very snowy mountains visible from the airport! 
Flying over what I think is the Mont Blanc massif (comments please!)
Lake District, with Haweswater in the foreground
Last edited by After all it is free  on Fri 8-03-24 17:07; edited 1 time in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Trip summary
A mixed trip, to be honest. On the plus side, we managed to ski on all 10 of our planned days, with light winds and the vast majority of pistes open in every ski area we visited. On the other hand, I'd rather not repeat 10 consecutive days of skiing in snow / rain again. Snowfall is important, but can it just happen prior to our arrival in future please?  The snowline made for a few quite soggy days (wet snow, sleet, rain), and resulted in there being loads of snow high up everywhere, but thin cover lower down in some resorts; it also meant we avoided having to use snow chains. Poor visibility was the biggest disappointment for me; despite photos taken at opportune moments, we were often skiing in fog, and rarely had views of the surrounding mountains. Blue skies were mostly restricted to brief glimpses, probably <5% of our time skiing.
Paganella was the big surprise on this trip - we loved it. Long runs, fast lifts, probably stunning views. Madonna di Campiglio (et al.) is also an impressive area (as expected), though it could do with a few more areas above the treeline, and a higher capacity lift system. Monte Bondone, Rittner Horn and Lavarone were all fun local resorts with a friendly feel. I was perhaps least impressed with Folgaria: quite a big area, yet few memorable runs, and woefully small skiable vertical.
Cost breakdown
Prices are for 2 adults, 12 days (halve for per person prices). Not included: food costs, insurance.
Flights (EasyJet EDI-MXP, 1 hold bag) £173
Car hire (Goldcar 11 days, snow chains, + fuel / tolls £36+170
Accommodation (2-person palace in Rovereto, 5 nights, + 2-person apartment in Coredo, 5 nights, + 2-person hovel in Legnano, 1 night) £234+203+35
Lift passes (total 10 days - see individual posts for details) £869
Ski & boot hire (10 days) £199
Total: £1919
"Cost per skiing day" (£96) is the highest of any DIY ski trip we've ever undertaken. Lift passes are mostly responsible, being almost 50% more expensive than our France trip in January despite often visiting smaller ski areas this time. Accommodation and ski hire were also relatively expensive. Overall, Italy continues to be consistently more expensive than France for all these elements.
Travel to and within Italy is usually cheaper than France, and this year was no exception. The £36 we paid for 11 days' intermediate category car hire was astoundingly good value. Thumbs up to Goldcar, Malpensa for the third year in a row! Any questions about further price details etc. - feel free to ask.
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 8-03-24 17:08; edited 1 time in total
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I would feel the same about having so little sunshine, and therefore so few views. It's a heretical statement on Snowheads but I would prefer to ski less than perfect snow in the sunshine than boot deep fresh powder in poor visibility.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Origen, +1.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Really appreciate the review and summary. Also fantastic summary of each area.
It may be the most you have paid but looks like great value to me.
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You know it makes sense.
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@denfinella, another brilliant TR, really enjoy the read and analysis of destinations. Looking forward to the next one
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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@denfinella, great photos! (That venison pasta made me feel very hungry.)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks, once again. Photos of white outs wouldn't be very useful. I have to say that even the photos with half-decent vis gave me very little urge to be "out there and doing". The pictures of the food, on the other hand........
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Fantastic as always
Thanks
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@denfinella, a great trip report again, I really enjoy reading them, Italy ticks all the boxes for me, generally quiet and wonderful food at realistic prices, my appetite has been whetted for my upcoming trip to Canazei, I might even try and emulate your reporting 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Even better with pictures! Interesting to see what's changed in Madonna since our last visit and weird that they haven't removed the bottom station of the old Fortini chair, must be a lot better with the gondola on the other side of the bridge.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@denfinella, Very good, its so much to take in, so much info and pics.
I've only scanned it, but I can see you have put so much effort into this and I'm sure you enjoyed doing it.
Thank you.
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Cheers all.
@geoffknight, hope to see a report from you soon!
@stevew, that lift hub definitely seems to work well (apart from the Groste queues). I wonder if they're hoping to sell or reuse the old Fortini base station?
@DrLawn, most of the write-ups are done while (in the passenger seat) driving back from each day skiing, so it's not a huge drain on time. Then just need to add the photos and sometimes tweak the text to fit them after the end of the trip.
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FAQ
