The day begins with the AE crew heading to Cortina for the day to ski the Tofana. We'd all skied in Wolkenstein yesterday and were slightly disappointed in the snow cover. Many aspects were bare, and popping off trail was nothing short of adventure skiing with HighwayStar. So off to Cortina we went, searching for the better snow. Cortina sat at a slightly higher elevation and we were hopeful in what we might find.
The 2 hour, 22 Euro bus ride dumped us at the base of the Tram about 10 am, and the lower aspects of the mountain seemed to have no more to offer than we had found back in Val Gardena yesterday. We squash into the tram like sardines, some diggin' the American tunes blasting from my pack, some downright offended that I'm subjecting them to this god awful music from which there is no escaping. The doors to the tram finally open and like lemmings, one by one, we all spill out into our new high alpine playground.
One run down a groomer to warm up the legs, and we're off exploring. Rusty, MtnMan, Jim and I all ride the yellow double chair to the top of Tofana, and we bee-line skiers left, under the chair and traverse out under the cliffs following the tracks of others from yesterday and beyond in search of some fresh snow. The term fresh is relative. It hasnt really snowed in weeks, but its nearly 60 degrees out and the snow is quickly softening like a lemon gelato in the sun. We find a hanging snowfield with a bit of untracked snow and all dive in. A quick video session to prove to the world that we can gape with the best of 'em, and we continued on our quest to find good terrain and snow.
Following random tracks off piste in strange territory doesnt always lead to the best of situations, but the sheer number of tracks in there kept our hopes up. We didn't go off following the single track to oblivion, and made sure at least 3-4 people had gone the way we were going. We were pretty certain we'd find an exit that didnt require air or mountaineering skills.
And our pursuits didn't fail us. We found a little two stage couloir that exited through a snowfield below to the groomer we warmed up on. Standing at the top of the chute, we see who we think is Phantom down below watching us. We throw some waves, and some hoots and hollers, and plan our attack.
The snow has gotten wet and heavy and slough through the chute is a potential problem. The chute is only a couple ski lengths wide, and the heavy snow makes jump turns a lot of effort. MtnMan, Rusty, and Jim take the bailout from the upper section of the chute and rejoin me at the entrance to the lower chute. I drop in with a couple of hard cuts at the top to attempt to clear out the sluff, make a couple ugly jump turns through the couli and straightline out to the right, to set up for a few pictures of the rest of the crew following me down. I managed to knock out most of the sloppy stuff, but turns are still a ton of work.
These guys made it look easy.
We all reach the snowfield below, proud of our accomplishment, Phantom still looking on from below, and we all ski off towards him, me taking up the rear. This lower aspect is relatively flat, so we all take the opportunity to whoop it up, slarving turns, hopping little rocks, and just having fun. I'm the last one to the slope below, I hop the lip out on the groomer, and start blasting toward the lift below. That's when I hear someone scream out in a very unfriendly tone of voice, ..."STORMY!".
I jack on the brakes and turn to look uphill at my compatriots in an attempt to acertain the need to interupt my speed run. And then I see it. It was not the Phantom gawking over our spectacular abilities, its a man in a dark blue fartbag with his name inscribed across his back. His name, POLIZIA.
I inch my way back up the slope to the rest of the group to find Jim attempting to converse with our spectator in German. Jim is an outstanding young man fighting for our country as a member of the National Guard and has had the fortune (or misfortune as some would find it) of being stationed in Germany and being fluent in the lovely language. Misfortune because, Jim is now ordained as our leader, our boss, Mr. Talky, while we all get to remain silent.
The Italian Stallion attempts to explain to us in english that we are not permitted to ski in the location we were, but something remains lost in the translation. "Eet ez impozzeeble to ski dare, ooh-ah, note pozzeeble". Which leaves us baffled. We think to ourselves, sh*t, it's totally possible, didn't you just see us ski it???? I mean come on, it wasn't even that hard, how could it be impossible. He certainly couldn't mean forbidden or illegal, in the land of the largest mountains in the world, where ropes don't even exist to duck under. Jim interprets in German, elbows us all in the throats to shut our mouths, and attempts to understand what we have just gotten ourselves into...
The man in the blue suit wants all our passports, our papers... We do not oblige him, for we don't ski with our passports, and we offer up our American drivers licences as our only means of identification. Take it or leave it, its all we have. Befuddled, he musters up his best Arnold impersonation, and says, "...come vit me..." And we follow.
He ducks the turnstyle to access the lift down below, and waits for us all to bleep through with our magnetic passes. MtnMan and I have the misfortune of sharing the triple with the Man from La Mancha. We attempt again to acertain our misfortune, only to find out we really do not understand what he is trying to tell us, and figure we are better off keeping our mouths shut, than seem like we are arguing with him. "Iz ooh-ah note pozzeeeble..." and we left it at that.
We arrive at the top of the chair and the pole-less wonder skis off in front of us toward the Tram building. He stops 20 yards in front of us and turns back to make sure we are following....we were. But Rusty and Jim unfortunately did not make the chair immediately behind us, and the dude immediately thinks they've ditched. "Ooh-ah, your friendz...?" We assure him that they are only a few chairs back, and within seconds they appear over the horizon.
We are escorted through the secret entrance into the Tram building and into what we've designated, THE INTERROGATION ROOM. Its a small room with concrete walls, no bigger than 8'x12' with a deep wash sink and a metal table...no windows, no lights. The big metal entrance door has the familiar DO NOT ENTER sign on it, the Italian version of course, and it swings close with a thunderous bang behind us.
Inside we find another outstanding member of the Carabinieri, this one with better english skillz. Immediately he looks us all over and turns to Jim (clearly the senior member of the group in his eyes...sorry Jim) and says, "...you are the leader, the boss?".
Jim's first thought is deny, deny, deny. You see, Jim was the follower on our excursion, I was the leader. Jim didn't want to accept the responsibility for being the law breaker, especially since he really didn't want to go the way we went, but being outvoted 3:1 he tagged along, rather than ski off by himself. And now he is our spokesman. I would have gladly volunteered myself as the one at fault for leading the group, but Jim was the elder, and the German speaker, and the ranking officer, so he stepped to the table and accepted his role as group commander.
The man with the badge explains to us that we cannot duck ropes in Italy, and that off piste skiing is against Italian law and forbidden. We all turn to each other with puzzled looks. We didnt duck any rope. The polizi says "...not rope, sign..." Sign? We didnt see any sign that said no off piste skiing. He insists we skied right by it, and again we turn to each other with puzzled looks. He attempts to recall the wording, insists the sign is written in English, Italian, and German, and tells us the sign says something along the lines of "...AVALANCHE....danger..."
Whoa whoa whoa we interject. Certainly a sign that simply says 'avalanche danger' does not mean skiing is prohibitted. He assures us that is exactly what the sign meant. MtnMan attempts to explain that in America, a sign like that would mean that we need to take special precations, and we are all trained to be in avalanche terrain. He pulls his beacon and shovel from his pack and tries to assure the man that we were prepared for what we were getting ourselves into. The policeman understands our plight, but continues on that we were not the only ones in danger. With a groomed ski slope down below us, a large avalanche triggered by us had the potential to trap skiers on piste below us and bury the chairlift that accessed it. We had no argument there, except that with the poor snow year they've had this season, and the very limited amount of snow on the slopes, there was no way we could trigger an avalanche big enough to reach the piste below....but we opted not to argue that point with him.
He tells us that he is waiting to hear back from his boss as to whether he needs to file an official report on the matter and take the necessary legal actions. A lillte poo leeks out as we sit in the dark and await our fate.
Fartbag #1 returns with our identification, mutters something in German/Italian/whatever damn language they speak in that lost mountain land, and hands our licencses to our new friend. He turns to us one by one, inspecting our pictures as he hands us each back our ids. "My boss says I can let you go without filing a report. But, no more off piste skiing within the resort. I know all you guys are expert skiers, and have the safety equipment to do so, but this is not America, and you cannot ski where ever you want. Skiing off piste is strictly forbidden, and getting caught again will certainly result in harsher consequences. So if you want to ski off piste, here is where you need to go."
Huh. Did I just hear that right? You can't ski off piste, its completely forbidden, and I just chewed you out, but now I'm gonna tell you where to ski off piste? Am I missing something? Does something seem not right here?
He tells us to ride the same double chair to the top, and to find the boot pack that heads up and to the left (which we had seen before and know exactly where it is). He tells us to hike the boot back up to the cliff face, and follow along the cliff face until we get to the crux in the rock where you can get to the back side. On the back side we will find a very nice chute, that is completely safe, and not prone to avalanches. Says he skied it himself last year, and that it was very nice. Very very nice, we will enjoy it very much. He continues to explain that if the top of the chute does not have enough snow in it to ski, that there is also a lower entrance to the same chute which would certainly be skiable. He says to simply hike along the cliff wall to the left and we will see a hole through the rock, a natural archway that accesses the couloir on the backside. Follow the cable to the hole in the rock, go through the hole, and ski the chute on the back side, he says, "...very nice, very very nice..."
So off he sends us. We thank him profusely for letting us off so easy, and for giving us the goods and we exit the Tram building with mixed emotions. Happy to have gotten off and fortunate to have gotten away with something we could have ended up fined, passes taken, or in jail for, but still with enough adrenaline flowing to make the hands shake. Surely we were about to be tortured in that small room, held under water in that small sink, or handcuffed across that small metal table with our pants around our ankles. We feel lunch is in order before our excursion outside the resort...
Gatorade and trail mix is enough for me, as the butterflies in my stomach haven't quite worn off yet, and the smell of the goulash soup reminds me over the overflowing porta potties at the last Phish show I attended. We sit outside soaking up the sun and the views as we prepare for our attack on the backside. Finally we are off, skis clicked in, and riding that familiar yellow double chair to the top. The butterflies and gatorade get the best of me, and I know there is no holding back. I turn back to MtnMan to make sure the camera is handy and announce my intent to hurl from the chair. Smiling, gurgling, and chunking all the way to the top MtnMan records the photographic evidence as I make my artistic marks in the snow below, attempting to hold off as skiers pass by below me.
Freshly purged and eager to roll, we arrive at the top with the bootpack staring us in the face. MtnMan is the first to get his skis strapped on and charges up the face.
Its a well set in boot pack at a fairly easy pitch, so the going is easy. As we near the top, the bootpack becomes exposed, and rocks begin jutting out everywhere. MtnMan opts to turn left and head right for the crux. Waist deep in snow he walllows to make each step. We abandon his line and continue to follow the existing pack along the rocks. MtnMan no longer content to swim in the heavy snow, returns to our line and follows us to the top.
We all finally arrive at the top to find one of the gnarliest chutes we've ever seen, completely south-southwest facing, and devoid of snow.
The chute rolls over, and cuts hard left, so it was impossible to see what was down below that point. The top would not be do-able, and we head towards option #2...the hole in the wall.
Jim was just out in front of me, and a bit shaky from the exposure, so he asked me to lead. We were standing on top of the world with about a thousand foot drop off to either side, understandablly a bit unnerving. I had no problem diving out front and made it my mission to scope the hole for snow. The feeling of exposure actually got a little better as you continued on the bootpack towards the archway, as the rock wall reappeared just beyond the crux, and now you could only fall in one direction instead of two. The mound of snow I was hiking along began to diminish as the rock wall got bigger and bigger, both above me and below me.
Eventually the mound narrowed to a small patch of snow no more that a ski boot length wide with cliffs above and below. Things were getting hairy, and the hole was still not in view. And that's when it appeared...the cable that led to the hole. A 3/8" braided steel cable was anchored into the rock wall with an eye bolt and followed along the small footpath in the rock. It led downward at about 20 degrees and around the corner. I yelled back to my partners that things were getting gnarly and it was gonna take me a little while to continue scoping things out. Poles in my left had, and my right hand securely around the cable, I inched my way towards my destination, one step at a time, making sure of every single foothold.
As I came around the corner, there it was, the archway, the hole in the rock. About 30' below me and 50' to 60' out in front of me. My trusty cable 20 degrees downturned now changed direction courtesty of another eye bolt anchored to the rock. It now traversed the 75 degree rock face at 45 degrees downward, and the 6" footpath along rock that it had followed along was no more. No place to put your feet from here on out. With a deep breath, I dropped my right elbow between the cable and the rock, let the cable slide up under my armpit, crossed my left arm out in front of me to grab on to the cable with my pole hand (poles still in hand), picked my feet off the ground, and slid down the 45 degree angle to the end of the line...the hole in the rock. I had made it.
Now at the hole, I realized from the point I was at the end of the cable to the ground at the bottom of the hole was a clear 10-12 foot drop. Not sticking the landing meant a severe fall in either direction. And the landing area was by no means smooth or wide, covered in jagged loose rock. A 6' nylon rope hung from the end of the cable and would be the only means of accessing the hole. The rope was knotted at 1' intervals with a hand loop at the bottom. The hand loop was half worn through and hardly something I wanted to trust my life to, but at this point my options were pretty limited...limited to the worn nylon hand loop. So I loop my hand through, grab onto a knot on the rope above the loop, and with my poles in my left hand began lowering myself down to a point where my feet touched the ground. A bit tricky with a pack with skis on my back clanking into rocks along the way, but doable...and my feet were finally back on solid ground. I now stood in the hole, with views to the north and the south, and the feeling of exposure returned. I took of my pack to eliminate the possibility of accidentally knocking myself off balance and peered over the back side to see the sweetness that awaited us.
The rest of the crew yelled down to me asking how bad the hike down got and what the back side would yield. My response was not what they were hoping to hear. There was no snow in the couloir...nothing skiable anyway. Patch here, patch there...maybe we could connect the dots... Then I explained the hike down. My crew was less than thrilled and opted to turn back. Turn back, I thought to myself....what the fcuk am I supposed to do. I can't go back the way I came. I can't venture off the back side patch skiing by myself in a foreign country not knowing where this chute was going to take me. What the hell was I going to do?
The face below me on the resort side, below the hole, had snow. It was steep, 60 degree steep, and it rolled over after 100 yards. I had no way of knowing was was below it, but once I committed there would be no turning back. Every turn would be a jump turn in heavy snow on a face sure to pucker even the best of them. I waited for the rest of my crew to appear down below me. I was not going to ski the face without a little recon from below. It took MtnMan 20 minutes or more to appear in my view as a speck down below me. I shouted down, asking if I could ski this face.
MtnMan's response made my heart sink. "NOOOOOOOOO!" I got, with arms and ski poles waving a giant X in the air. "CLIFFFFFFFF!"
"So what do I do," I ask.
Again MtnMan's response made my heart sink, this time to somewhere around my ankles. "You gotta go back the way you came!"
I look back up at the rope and cable I had slid down earlier. There is certainly no way I can go back the way I came. NO EFFIN WAY. My options are two, hike and patch ski solo off the back side down a chute covered in loose rock and scree in a direction that seems completely opposite of the way I need to go, with the only road in site over 20 miles away having done no recon in that direction, having no means of mobile communication, and never been in the region before...OR...climb back up that cable without any safetey equipment and any slip meaning certain death ragdolling over the cliffs below me.
Fear started taking over, and just the exposure of where I stood started to encapsulate my mind. It took every ounce of courage in my body to put my pack back on and start making that climb back towards the cable. I blocked everything out of my mind and focused on each small task at hand, one by one. Poles in my right hand, I brought my left leg up to a foot hold, pushed up and reached with my left hand for the loop in the rope. Got it. Looped my hand through and grabbed for a knot. Got it. I clung to the face of the rock and didnt look down. One more time, left foothold, plant with poles in right, push up and stretch for a higher knot on the rope. Got it, and I clung to the rock face again. I thought to myself, I gotta ditch these poles, I need two hands to hold on. Do I just toss em over the edge? Will they make it to the guys below? Can I live without poles if they dont'? Do I climb back down and try to stuff them in my pack?
I decide, if I can live with them in my hands, I'm gonna, and push on. The next foothold and reach gets me to the end of the cable. With two hands on the cable, I pull myself up to my elbows and am able to loop my left elbow between the cable and the rock. I wrap the cable around my left forearm. I'm ok. Still I cling to the rock face for dear life, afraid to look down. I know that even if I slip at this point, I am locked into the cable. I will not fall to my death. I may hang here mangled with a dislocated shoulder, but I'm not going to fall. That gives me some degree of sanity.
With every ounce of strength I inch hand over hand along the cable upwards, all the while scrambling with my feet along the rocks trying to find any little foothold that can push me along. I'm doing it, I'm making it, and I peer over the edge to see what is below me.
A rock crumbles from below my feet and my weight falls completely on my left arm as my right hand with my poles slips from the cable. I scramble for another foothold and get my right hand back on the cable. No more looking down. One pull at a time, i make my way back up. I reach the next cable and the small footpath. I inch along to the point where I can safely tread on snow without hanging on to the cable, and I crawl on my hands and knees back to the crux I had left earlier. I didn't die. I'm alive.
As I jam my skis into the snow at 45 degrees, click in, and rock forward, I can see the top of the lift and piste down below me. I've got a nice 40 degreee snowfield below me with 500-600 feet of vertical to ski, nice pristeen heavy snow out of the sun. And there is a crowd of 50 people standing below watching me. Exhausted from the climb and terror, my turns aren't spectacular, but I make it to the bottom and air the 6' footer out onto the ski slopes. A quick stop to check my line down, smile to the crowd, and take off down the slope to find Mtnman and Rusty waiting for me. I collapse in exhaustion.
After a few minutes to rest, we take our time making our way down the steep groomer to the peak lodge next to the Tram building. The reality of what just happened begins to set in and my sheer exhaustion turns to anger. "Those mutha fcuking cops did that on purpose. They sent the stupid Americans on a run that would certainly stop them from skiing off piste in Italy again..." I was pissed, and stormed off towards the interrogation room to give the Polizia a piece of my mind. The rest of my crew tried to stop me. "BAD IDEA" they say. And they were right. So I toned down my method of approach to just talk to them and let them know there's no snow up there, things are very dangerous right now, and they shouldn't send anyone else in that direction. I pound on the door...no answer. Probably a good thing.
We return to the peak lodge where we grab a few drinks and sit outside. I realize I havent caught my breath yet, and I'm shaking like a leaf. I begin to understand further the predicament I'd just gotten myself in, and in reflection two giant lessons become evident.
1.) Never, never hike/ski/climb anything you are not prepared to turn around and go back the way you came.
2.) Never ever trust the police.
Glad to be alive, high fives went all around. I gathered my composure and we skied back to the bus. Today was an exhausting day and there were four more ski days on the trip yet to come. I was grossly humbled, and sat very quiet most of the way home, too altered to tell the story in detail to anyone. This has been my first full detailed account. And every minute of it engrained into my mind like a painting on the wall.
