Travis Ganong leads us from Val Gardena to Alta Badia, on skis

By Travis Ganong
(From his blog with permission)
After our races in Val Gardena down the famed Saslong, Steve Nyman and myself along with our tour guide “Babbs”, decided to ski part of the Cella Ronda and ski from our hotel in Val Gardena over the pass to Alta Badia to watch the US GS team rip over there. We woke up early and walked down to the first lift that whisked us away up and over the first amazing ridge of mountains.  The snow was fun to ski, nothing special… (I can’t wait to get back to Tahoe and ski some deep soft powder at Squaw.)

From left to right: Random Italian dude, “Babbs”, “Sven”, and “Traa”

This was the view that greeted us at the top of our first pass. Although this picture does not do it justice at all… Imagine rocky multi-spire peaks like these in formation 360 degrees all around. Amazing…. truly the Dolomite Super Ski. The skiing may not be that good, but the experience and the views are.

Skiing down the first part of the Cella Ronda was nothing special (skiing wise), but the view was amazing.  I found my self skiing, glove off with my camera phone out, snapping photos of the amazing Dolomites that surrounded us.  Such an awe inspiring place.  Every avid skier must make a trip here at least once.

This shot doesn’t look ski-able, but “Babbs” the tour guide led us to believe that there was amazing free ski routs and tours through out all of these peaks. I am going to definitely come back here after my racing career and document the amazing col’s and descents

The “Piste” descending from the first pass was long, flat, fast, surprisingly fun, and about 10 kilometer long…. with views like this all around.

This lift was dead flat… traversing across a valley from one ski area to the next. (Imagine Squaw and Alpine connected). That would be easy, but then imagine a lift from the Resort at Squaw Creek, across the meadow and over the Truckee River and up towards the backside of Northstar. That’s what they have going on over here. Truly amazing.

After the first 10 k, 2000 meter decent, and after you ride the high-speed, cross valley quad, you arrive in a village where you ride a few smaller, slower lifts, ski across some roads (literally…they leave some snow on the roads for skiers to cross) and ride a long high speed gondola, you arrive on top of a huge alpine plateau.  Here you can see all around the Dolomites as you ride some more lifts. It is vast.  You can ski/travel miles upon miles. Our destination was Alta Badia for the World Cup GS, so we headed there on our skis.

Riding back up a slow double lift after the long gondola towards Alta Badia…  good thing they left this one slow;   more time to check out the amazing views…. (check out that amazing col across the valley in the shade).

I am coming back here at some point in my life to ski this amazing Col. It is almost perfect (it looks like there is a 10 meter cliff at the bottom, but skiable still I think). Has anyone done this yet?

After the last few lifts, we skied down towards the finish of Alta Badia.  Alta Badia is the best GS race hill in the world.  It is steep and icy, it has bank turns and dogleg turns and rolls all the way down into the finish. It reminds me a little bit of the “Dog-Leg” on Red Dog at Squaw Valley.

We skied down to watch both runs and we were fortunate enough to be able to cheer on Ted as he won his third straight GS race of the year.  It made all American ski racers proud to watch this. Our team has the two best skiers in the world right now in Lindsey and Ted, and we have talented younger skiers that are knocking on the doors of success, as well as the coaches and staff to make it happen, so watch out for the US Ski Team to accomplish a lot this new year, and in years to come.

Ted climbing to the top of the podium in Alta Badia. An amazing day for US Skiing. There is a whole lot more to come.

Travis Ganong’s blog,  “Just Ski It”, can be found at: https://www.travisganong.com