Freeride is primarily lift served “backcountry” skiing with perhaps short bits of hiking and skinning. We sometimes call it “side country” skiing in the US. But in the Alps, it might be more accurate to just label it “the rest of the country”. The ski terrain in the Alps is simply massive and that includes the backcountry ski terrain that can be found off of the extensive lift networks. In Europe you could say that there are not so much ski resorts with exact boundaries, there are just lifts. And they can get you quickly into some amazing ski terrain.

Off piste on a 4000 ft powder run in Engelberg, Switzerland

The selection of off-piste terrain that is accessible from the lifts can many times be more extensive than the on-piste, or groomed and controlled, terrain. It can be somewhat compared to Heli skiing off a lift (and yes, in many Alps countries they have Heli ski access also). The ski gear for freeride are the skis you want to ski. We’re talking the big skis of 105mm under foot or wider, beefy touring bindings and supportive 4 buckle touring boots. Split boards can do very well (sometimes better) in freeride terrain.

One way to describe freeride skiing is that it is what most skiers who come to the Alps from the US to go hut ski touring actually really want to do, but they just don’t know it. Yes, the alpine huts in Europe are amazing and the ski touring from point A to B can be through some of most spectacular terrain on the planet. But hut to hut ski touring is really about moving from, well, hut to hut. Freeride is all about big descents with big skis and searching out the best snow.

Dropping into a chute in the Dolomites of Italy

A freeride day can entail riding two gondolas and a cable car to the top first thing in the morning, ducking the rope and dropping 6200 feet down lightly tracked chutes and bowls into a far valley. After a quick latte or delicious Weiner schnitzel at a remote chalet, you catch a bus back to the base lift. Then back up, perhaps a short 30 min skin and there you are at another powder stash that only a few have been to all day.

Afternoon fresh tracks under the Gondola in Engelberg

Or, you might just be lapping up untracked fresh powder just a few minutes traverse from the lift at 1pm (yes, 1pm). You see, at many Alps ski resorts most people do not come to ski the off-piste ungroomed terrain. They have their short carving skis and are content to ski the groomers all day long and don’t even consider the foot of powder 20 feet off to their right under the rope to even be an viable option. That leaves the fresh tracks for the minority of us.

Back up you go again to access that short 40-minute skin ascent that takes you to that far untracked ski run you saw the day before. Spitting you off at the base of a chairlift you get back on the piste run down into town, and of course to the inevitable après ski party.

Major freeride destinations in the Alps are Chamonix and La Grave in France, Verbier and Engelberg in Switzerland, Alagna and the Dolomites in Italy, and St. Anton in Austria… among many, many others. Even some small Alps ski hills (of which there are many) can have big freeride opportunities off their one or two lifts. The Alps literally has a lifetime’s worth of freeride skiing exploration.

Dropping in towards the Mer de glace in chamonix

How much does all this cost? Not that much, once you get yourself to Europe. A ski trip to to a European Alps ski resort costs far less than the equivalent in the United States. You can enjoy lift ticket prices that are a fraction of US tickets prices. A $40 (equivalent) lift pass is very common at the smaller resorts and even the larger famous resorts are commonly under $100 for the day. In the Dolomites of Italy, you can currently purchase a weekly Dolomiti Superski ticket for about $70 per day and that gives you access to over 450 lifts! Lodging options in the Alps are far more diverse than in the US with choices ranging from super cheap hostels to 5-star swank hotels. Food can be a bit more, but the quality of the average restaurant food in the Alps is far better.

mid morning cappuccino break in Alagna between couloirs

Freeride skiing is really the quintessential Alps skiing experience having all the elements of resort skiing, ski touring as well as occasionally ski mountaineering involving ropes and glacier skiing. Easy access to massive backcountry runs, backcountry huts and refugios with great lunch food and drink and at the endo of the day there’s always a lively apres ski spot…freeride skiing in the Alps is living the good life of backcountry skiing

Join International Alpine Guides Freeride and hut to hut sking in the Alps

Over 450 ski lifts under one lift ticket (not a typo) that stich together an entire region. Countless numbers of couloirs. 6,000 foot glaciated powder runs. Wide endless valleys. One could travel for weeks from town-to-town and valley-to-valley solely on ski lifts and not ski the same run twice. All with stunningly beautiful scenery and some of the World’s best cuisine. No, I’m not describing a mythical skiers nirvana. Just talking about the Dolomites, a very real place nestled in the South Tirol of Northern Italy.

I recently had the opportunity to scout a completely different type of backcountry ski experience. The journey began on the canals and waterways of Venice, Italy, about as an unlikely a place to begin a ski trip as could be imagined. In the bustle of the Piazza San Marcos I met up with my good friends Gregor and Erica from Reno, Nevada. Soon we were loading skis and bags onto a water taxi and were headed for Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomites, a mere two hours away.

Cortina, home of the 1956 winter Olympics, has all the small town ritz one would expect of an upscale Italian mountain resort. It’s not uncommon to see paparazzi shadowing a celeb along the main pedestrian walkway. In fact, many people come to Cortina to simply idle away the days in the boutiques and sip Aperol spritzes in the cafes, with skiing being a mere distraction. However, scratch just under the surface and you’ll find that Cortina is a very real ski town with very real terrain and a rich history of skiing.

We packed everything for six nights into our 30 liter backpacks and purchased our 7-day Dolomiti Superski Pass which gave us access to 460 lifts (came out to about $45 per day). The next morning we launched off from Cortina onto the largest ski lift system in the world in search of good backcountry skiing (known in Europe as “off-piste” skiing). A world of couloirs, powder and adventure awaited us.

We immediately found ourselves in complete whiteout trying to find our way down groomed runs by braille. It was clearly time to head to the nearest high mountain hut, or “rifugio”, for lunch. The closest happened to be the Rifugio Averau, located at the top of a ski lift and known to be the one of the top ten mountain restaurants in the Alps (There was a Maserati in a clear plexiglass box just outside the front door). After enjoying what was one of the top three steaks of my life and washing it down with the local wine varietal known as Lagrein, we launched back into the howling whiteout. With a compass and a ski resort trail map we found our way to the top of the Lagazuoi cable car, our destination for the night. The Rifugio Lagazuoi is perched on the top of a large limestone cliff formation that was directly on the front lines of World War One. After enjoying more excellent food and wine prepared by a guy in a chefs hat we settled into our private rooms for the night and were lulled to sleep by the roar of the tempest outside the window.

One of the advantages of skiing in the Dolomites is that even in the worst of weather there is usually something to ski. No sitting around a backcountry hut with nowhere to safely go or moping around town waiting for flying weather. Due to the massive amount of marked runs and the extensive lift system you can still ski something. And as any experienced traveling backcountry skier knows, that is huge. So waking up to more whiteout the next morning we found ourselves skiing down one of the most famous groomed runs in the world that winds down from Lagazuoi into Alta Badia past towering dolomite limestone formations. And not one other skier in sight. The run just simply ends over three thousand feet below with the nearest ski lift a mile away across flat terrain. That’s where the guy with the horse lift comes in. For a mere two Euro you are dragged by a horse-drawn sleigh across the valley to the nearest ski lift in the tiny hamlet of Armentarola and are once again connected to the Dolomiti Superski. Pure magic.

We then proceeded to ski lift after lift (with a cappuccino stop of course) for the entire afternoon to our next destination, the small village of Arabba. Arabba is located within striking distance of our next quarry – the high glaciated off-piste runs of Marmolada. With the weather finally breaking and fresh powder up high we bolted first thing the next morning for the Marmolada cable cars, three of them actually, which whisk you up over 6000 vertical feet to near the highest point in the Dolomites. After a 26,000 vertical foot day skiing mostly off-piste powder up high we boarded our sore thighs onto chair lifts and traveled to our next destination – the funky Rifugio Fredarola at the base of the Sella Massif.

Fredarola sits perched on the side of a massive valley just off a offering cozy private rooms each with expansive views of Marmolada. I’m pretty sure I made out some of our tracks from the picture window of our room. The next morning we woke up to bluebird skies – it was game on. Skiing away from the front door of our refugio before the lift starting spinning, we made it to the Piz Pordoi cable car at opening. We opted for a morning run down the Val Lasties, a classic off-piste valley run that takes you towards the Sella Pass and deposits you at a roadside rifugio with great cappuccino and a friendly dog.

After the caffeine break, it was down a "squirrel trail" that spit us back onto a groomed run and down to the nearest chair lift. Eventually it was back up the Piz Pordoi cable car to sample one of the steep couloirs the Sella Massif is known for. We chose the “Canale Joel” or Joel Couloir, which has a nice steep entry at about 45 degrees, but quickly pinches down so narrow and with such steep walls on both sides that parts of it never see the sun even though it is South facing. Afterward, it was back to the Fredarola for a well-earned Aperol Spritz in the “ice bar”… a bar completely carved out of the snow and ice with a lively Euro-style après ski scene. Life you could say was good.

Another stellar day of splitter clear weather found us in the famous Val Mesdi, a long North facing valley that is accessed from the top of Piz Pordoi via a 30-40 minute skin or walk. The ski of the Val Mesdi takes you across the entire Sella Massif into another valley of the Alta Badia. On the descent we enjoyed some surprisingly great pockets of powder on the way down to the town of Corvara. Upon arriving in Alta Badia you notice a different feel. No longer is Italian the predominate language, German is spoken more freely and sign posts also show a third language unlike either German or Italian. The Sud Tirol Region in which the Dolomites reside was once Austria prior to WWI and today is a semi-autonomous province that keeps it a bit separated from Italy. To complicate things more, a third language, Ladin, is the first language of most people in Alta Badia (and other valleys) and is spoken by over 30,000 people.

After a week of traveling almost solely on skis with ski lift support we made our way back to Cortina. On our final day we enjoyed yet another fantastic backcountry off-piste descent that took us through a WWI tunnel and to yet another final gourmet lunch atop the lifts at Cinque Torri. This kind of living was getting too good, It probably had to stop. But now I know where I want to go when I die.

Dave Miller
Owner/Director
IFMGA/UIAGM Mountain & Ski Guide

We are offering the Dolomites Off Piste Skiing Adventure in March 2016