Day 47: Fantastic Fassa

16 Aug 2011

Day 47: Exploring the Canazei bike park. Today was another epic day. When you are on a road trip such as this, visiting the locations that we are, it’s obvious that ALL the scenery is going to be spectacular – it’s just the nature of mountains. Every trail brings a new perspective. But the Dolomites offer something so completely different to the rest of the Alps (yes the Dolomites are in the Alps – technically they are the Southern Limestone Alps…) that we are tempted to declare it the best view on the URT! But check out the pictures and decide for yourself.

First just to clear up the lift ticket issue. The Panorama Pass does not include the bike, so if you go for that option to get you on and off lifts throughout the region then you need to pay an extra €3 for the bike at Canazei each time (and probably at all the other lifts too). Otherwise, €22 gets you a bike park day pass. It’s 2 separate lifts, the first a gondola up to mid-station at Pecol which takes 2 or 3 bikes and riders in each cabin. And then a cable car up to Col Dei Rossi, which only runs every 15 minutes so you can’t just roll up and get on.

There are 2 trails off the top, both starting at the small wooden hut and name-board ‘Double U’. They drop down in full view of all the tourists through an open meadow before splitting; one taking you down the 4X course and the other down past some wooden drops and the big-hit bag jump (only open in the afternoons). Interestingly, regional law means that when building the trail here they can only take the grass off the top, and are not permitted to build ‘up’. This means the trails must be designed to work with the rolling hill-side and there is a distinct absence of the huge machine-built berms typical of other parks. But it actually works really well. Over lunch at Rifugio Ciampolin (great food, easy option – signposted right off the bike trail as you get close to the mid-station) we chatted with Wylly Basilico, one of the main guys running the park who was out on the trails guiding for the day. The Fassa project started 5 years ago with just one natural trail, and developed with the mindset of replicating the established parks such as Livigno. The park now has a major affiliation with POC. There is a full-time photographer on the trails called Flavio, so you can get some quality souvenir images. And there is a brand-new bike wash area at the mid-station, sponsored by Muc-off, which has a clever machine underneath it to separate the oil and water and enable the water to be re-used. Planned future development includes 2 new trails (and possibly a third) on the top half of the mountain, and (even more importantly) a lift up the opposite side of the valley which will link the trails at Canazei with those at Pozza – effectively creating one large bike park without the 15 minute drive between the two.

In the afternoon we explored the ‘Electric Line’ trail below the mid-station. This is a brilliant course, more demanding than those above. It clearly started out as a natural hiking trail and has been developed into a bike-only trail with added bus-stops and northshore sections, especially at the bottom where a considerable amount of building has taken place. This is not a course for beginners and unfortunately it is currently the only bike trail down below the mid-station. But work is in progress on a blue line to take you back to town, hopefully finished by the start of September this year.

At the end of the day we called in at Northland, the bike shop just over the road at the base of the lift (ski shop in the winter). Run by Ivan, Flavia and Stefan, all of whom speak English, this offers hire bikes and guiding packages and in fact is the only place in Canazei that rents full DH bikes. They also have a jet wash which is intended for their hire bikes but they’re happy for others to use it as it’s actually the only bike wash at the base station – very nice of them indeed. Tomorrow it’s the other half of Fassa – round the corner at Pozza.

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