The road to get there is insane. There are 60 switch backs that take a car with a lot of guts and a driver with a lot of skill. Luckily, we had the latter... and a fully loaded car. We made it up the pass but it was quite the experience. I've never been on a road like this before. It is the highest paved road in the Eastern Alps at 2757m. We couldn't help but cheer a little bit when we made it to the top. The views were unreal...
We managed to see close to 10 days straight of sun between Val Senales and Stelvio. I think I've almost got my summer tan back, on my face, with a bit of the reverse raccoon happening. The skiing and layout of the loop might have been one of the best I've ever experienced. Somehow the track stayed balmer hard and the skating still firm late into the morning. Usually we see it all breakdown and become really mushy but it held up. It was a trek to get to the "real" xc and I was seriously skeptical of the t-bar we had to take (after 2 gondolas to reach the glacier). I think I insisted multiple times that we ask someone if we were to just ski on the two small loops at the base of the chairlift (turns out one was being used for an ice/snow driving course of some sort- yes there were cars driving up there at 3300m), but Eric insisted back that we take the t-bar to the top of the downhill runs. I managed to get a hold of a bar behind a few athletes from the Spanish team and followed their lead since they had been here already. Turns out I'm a natural! haha! We also got to ski down to the gondola at the end of each day. Our skis aren't made for the speed of a straight downhill run and the lack of edges made it tricky but it was so much fun. Here are a few pictures up top the glacier:
It's hard not to be happy up here
Waiting to take gondola one, I looked out the hole in the side of a building and thought it looked like it could be a picture on a wall...syke! It's the real deal.
Working on that infamous classical technique
Well looky here, look at us go.
A few shots from the day trip to Moreno:
Wasting time as the group reassembled to head to Stelvio. Look at that vetical!
My attempt to fit in in Italia land
More to come on Stelvio in the next days!
E.
