Lifestyle

When conceived and constructed these were just roads, ways to get from one place to another. The Marmolada, Stelvio and the Mortirolo have since become much more than that to the world’s cycling fans, and to me. These are the famed passes of Northeastern Italy, over which Giros d’Italia are decided.

The high passes that characterize Italy’s grand tour (like the Marmolada at left... click the photo for a larger version) are roughly segregated into three regions. Italy’s west borders France and Switzerland, and the famous Alpen cols faced by Tour de France competitors—Izouard, and Madeleine come to mind—are next door to the Giro’s Sestriere.

Roughly south of St. Moritz and the Alps of eastern and central Switzerland are those passes considered the most challenging in Italian bike racing: the Stelvio and the Mortirolo. On the eve of the start of this year's edition of the Giro, a monument has been erected atop the Mortirolo to honor Italy’s fallen star of these mountains, Marco Pantani.

Further East, just below Austria and just west of Slovenia stand the Dolomites. These mountains are uniquely Italian, and are generally not quite as tall as the Alps these other famous climbs. The bulk of the Dolomite range is confined to a smaller area and, if you chose a spot in the middle, a radius of 25 miles would circumscribe most of the meaningful peaks.

It was here that I went along with my new wife, to see these ascents and passes for myself, and also to see the valleys and gorges at the bottom that contain the roads that lead riders to the towns that sit at the base of each ascent.

We landed in Munich two weeks after the ski season ended over this part of Europe’s high country. Most of the towns we visited were pretty much abandoned for the season, most of the hotels closed up, both in Austria and Italy. We flew to Munich because the flight was cheap, and direct from L.A. This itinerary was fortuitous, as I learned much more about the entire region than I would’ve had I simply arrived in Venice or Trieste and lit out for the high country.

We got a preview of the high mountains to come while driving through Austria’s Höhe Tauern National Forest (left and below). We popped out of a mountain on a train that carried our rental car on its back. The tunnel ran between Bad Gastein and Mallnitz, ski areas on either side of an Austrian Alp. Here the mountains stood directly above valleys 5000 feet below, in what seemed to me the waterfall capital of the world.

The base of these ski areas, from Southern Germany through Austria and into Italy, is often no higher than 4000 feet above sea level, which places the resorts’ bases considerably lower than those in America’s Rockies and Sierras. Yet many of these areas have lifts stretching to 9000’ and higher, giving a skier as much as 6000’ of vertical drop. Contrast this to America’s Heavenly Valley (Lake Tahoe) and Jackson Hole (Wyoming), each of which offers about 4000’ of drop and are among the most vertical found in America.

As we descended from Mallnitz to the valley perhaps 2000 feet below I thought I must be on a notable cycling road. In fact it was just one of perhaps 50 climbs equal or better within a 30 mile radius, as the crow flies, from the Dolomitic epicenter.

We continued from Austria to Italy and it occurred to me how much alike were the towns, the people, the dress, the language, food, architecture, even the livestock. Mountains, valleys and rivers variously divide and unite people and cultures much more than do rulers and national borders. Throughout all my travels on this trip (most of which occurred in Italy) the dominant language spoken was German. The Italian region in which I was to spend my time is known as Sud-Tirol, or South Tyrolia. It was part of the Hapsburg Empire from the 14th Century through to the end of World War I. The indigenous resentment to this region’s attachment to Italy was sufficient to warrant a grant, by Italy, of a largely autonomous government.

Not just the language draws the mountain people of Germany, Austria and Italy together. One notices that there is only one type of country farmhouse in all these regions. It is constructed of a first floor of fired clay block, through which runs many air channels. These are roughly analogous to our concrete blocks in their utility, except no rebar runs through these clay blocks, and none of their channels are filled with concrete. As this area is not immune to earthquakes I wondered what gives these houses their structural integrity when the earth moves, and I still don’t know the answer to that.

The typical German/Austrian/Italian (and one presumes Swiss) farmhouse has these clay block walls in its lower one or two stories, and these insulation-yielding blocks appear also used for the interior walls (instead of wood framing covered by drywall). The second story is also built atop a concrete slab, unusual in North America. The outside walls are then plastered, the color coat always white. The top half of the house (these farmhouses are three or four stories tall) are paneled with wood on their outside walls, and this woodwork can be quite elaborate.

Small point, but I also noticed the same breed of horse in all the areas I went. This all-purpose farm horse is called a Haflinger, and bears the chestnut coloring of a palomino, with a blonder tail and mane. It’s smallish at 13 or 14 hands, but very stocky and big of bone. They bear an agreeable disposition and are suited to the riding, pack or draft work they're asked to perform.

In short, by language, architecture, habits and custom it seemed to me that a German on a farm outside Garmish had more in common with an Italian on a farm outside Sillian than he did with his fellow countryman living in hour away in Munich.

As we drove south we did not need a road sign signifying we’d entered the Dolomites proper. These mountains are not especially high (the Marmolada is the high point and stands just shy of 11,000’ in altitude, making these mountains only about as high as those just outside my home in Southern California). But they are simply vertical. Though the region’s 40 active glaciers have not polished the rock walls smooth like those in the High Sierra, certain rock faces approach Yosemite’s El Capitan in both sheer verticality and impenetrability.

When considering the barriers such mountains must have presented to historical dwellers of the valleys separating these peaks, it’s easy to imagine the isolation of their inhabitants. Accordingly, valleys famous to both skiers and those who follow the Giro are also home to inhabitants who speak as their native tongue Ladin, a cousin of Romansh and derivative of no language spoken today. It is only in four of these remote, isolated Dolomite valleys (Livinallongo, Badia, Fassa and Gardena) that one of the four Romanish tongues still exist. Imagine the isolation required to keep the people living in several towns in a few adjacent valleys speaking a language handed down from Latin!

Oddly enough, in the Italian ski towns of Canazei and Ortisei (the villages of promince in the last two of these valleys, of which I’ll write later) Italian is for many residents the third language they’ll learn, only after Ladin and German.

I don’t pretend to understand the geology of this region, other than the name of this Alpen sub-range, which comes from the limestone deposits that comprise much of it. More obvious are the spires and sheer walls that speak to this range’s unparalleled verticality.

Our first town to visit was to Cortina, just to say I’ve been there. This must’ve been a fine place before the Olympics (1956) and Hollywood (For Your Eyes Only) found it. Now it’s just too big, and the quaint charm of its cobblestoned downtown is not enough to overcome the surrounding sprawl. But upon leaving Cortina I bagged my first passo, though only with a car. It was Falzarego, nothing too tough, and was a pass on the way to the first of the Passos on my list, Pordoi.

Of course these famous passes are like a lot of famous people: their fame is specific. You take Pam Anderson for example, it’s her front that’s most popular. Jennifer Lopez, it’s her backside (for a lot of folks). Likewise, is it Pordoi’s front or back that’s notable to bike riders? And what exactly is the front, that is, when is the Pordoi facing us?

In the case of the Passo Pordoi, it’s roughly a symmetrical mountain in its appearance, and though I did not put an odometer to it, it appears longer from Canazei than from Arabba on its other side (both of these are ski villages). The “official” way to climb the Pordoi is from Canazei. It’s about a 6% ascent on average, and there are no real steep spots. What’s interesting about the Pordoi is the extreme number of switchbacks, 33 on one side and 27 on the other. Each switchback is numbered with a plackard, and this is a tradition on these mountain pass roads.

The switchbacks, this is where many of these passes differ from the riding I’m used to. In the Sierras, and in the western U.S. in general, there are fewer switchbacks. Perhaps a good counterpoint to the Pordoi is the road from the California’s Owen’s Valley, near Bishop, through Onion Valley. This steep monster climbs up a precipitous wall, from 4000’ to 9000', and has long straight sections between its switchbacks. The Pordio’s negotiation of its mountain has few such straight runs and, in one crazy spot on the Arabba side, has five one-eighties so closely packed that I could walk from the top to the bottom of this section at a leisurely pace in less than a minute (below right). The Pordoi is fun. It’s like riding your bike on a go-cart course. Its three-thousand or so vertical feet represent a challenge, but less so than, say, San Diego’s Palomar or the Bay Area’s Mt. Hamilton.

The “official” Pordoi starts at Canazei, a mid-sized ski town at the head of the Fassa Valley (one of those four Ladin valleys previously described). Basically, all these mountain roads and passes are in ski towns. The Dolomites are just one large ski area. Yes, there are dozens of ski towns here, each representing what we might term a “resort.” But they’re all connected more or less, and you can buy a sort of super pass that lets you roam the Dolomites, slumming from one resort to the next. Six-thousand vertical feet of skiing is typical here, and if you take the lift to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain and ski the other side you’re in another primitive Ladin valley overrun by the ski industry, and another set of runs.

Canazei is also the start of the climb to the Passo Fedaia, and like the Pordoi tops out at roughly 7200’ above the sea. When you get to the top of Fedaia you’re at the top of the Marmolada, but you haven’t climbed it. The Marmolada is up the other side.

Remembering that you can separate the Giro’s Alpen climbs into three regions, there are those ascents in Italy’s west (e.g., Sestriere) and central (e.g., Stelvio) Alps, and then there are these I'm writing about. Among these, the Marmolada is the Beast of the East. It’s only 8.5 miles long, and the first 5 miles are quite mortal. You’d think you’re climbing any old 8-mile ascent, maybe Geiger Grade between Reno and Virginia City. But then you get to Malga Ciapela, a ski resort base station for skiing the Marmolada’s glacier. At this point the road does two nasty things: it gets steeper and, for several hundred meters, it’s straight as an arrow. Then it alternates straight sections with patches of successive switchbacks (below right), and then it breaks through the treeline. Its 16% grades seem to reach to the moon.

This mad run to gain the top is only just over 3 miles long, but I tried to imagine riding this during a typical Giro mountain stage. After two or three cols under one’s belt while just barely hanging on to the peleton, gaining the Fedaia has got to be a deal killer for a lot of the Giro’s chosen; they must be wondering, while negotiating the longest three miles of their lives, why they agreed to sign up for this.

Indeed, the race’s organizers did something particularly nasty for this year’s nineteenth Giro stage. On this day, the queen stage of the race, there are four tough passes. The Marmolada is the second of these four, to be followed immediately by the Pordoi, and then for the finish atop the San Pellegrino. How broken one’s spirit(!), should one’s body break here, on this mountain, knowing what is yet to come?

I spent the better part of a morning on the Marmolada, getting out of the car and pretty much just sniffing the pavement. In the afternoon we drove halfway up the Passo Pordio, and took an available left turn that brought us in a direction prettier yet. This route gains one the Passo Sella, and as usual there’s the two-story café gasthaus alone on this moonscape. There is on this pass also a herd of small, appropriately furry goats pestering visitors for food, along with surly dogs that both guard the goats and scold them when they get out of hand. The Sella offers you some options on its other side. You can drop down into Val Gardena (the next Ladin valley over). Or, you can veer right, go over the Passo di Gardena, and descend into the town of Corvara.

I did not do the latter, and so do not know anything of Corvara. But it would seem to me that there are two towns strategically placed as bases for those (like me) whose idea of a vacation is repeated killer ascents on a bike. One is Canazei, and the other is Corvara. Both give you great access to the Marmolada, Pordoi, and Sella. Canazei is closer to San Pellegrino. Corvara stages you for a bunch of riding to the North and East, including the Passo de Erbe.

All these forks in the road may seem confusing to the reader. But they’re a godsend to the rider. I must say, the Dolomites seem to me riven and traversed by more roads than necessary, but I’m not complaining. There are four and five roads here for every one found in an equivalent area in the Rockies or the Sierras. Europe’s Alpen valleys appear to me able to sustain considerable agriculture, and this is less-often seen in the mountain valleys of the American West. This agrarian capacity supports a larger population, in theory, and perhaps this accounts for the saturation of roads in the Dolomites.

And I should mention that these roads are in very good repair. The road surface is every bit as good as mountain roads in the U.S., approaching the quality of those in Germany, and perhaps a touch better than the French roads in the Maritime Alps. But these mountain roads are a bit skinnier than those in America, not a big problem because the cars are skinnier as well. But descenders ought to take the width of the roads into account as they enter these corners, many of which are blind.

Now that I’m stateside and have a bit of perspective, how do these Dolomite climbs measure up? As Del Gue eloquently phrased it, in Jeremiah Johnson, “The Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world. I ain't ever seen 'em, but my heart tells me that the Andes is foothills and the Alps are for children to climb.”

Del’s description can be stretched to cover Californias “Alps” as well. The Dolomite climbs are certainly not, "for children to climb," but they're not as long as the climbs in my state. A typical Dolomite passo takes about 10k to 14k to ascend, and in my local mountains (the San Gabriels) climbs of 20k and even double that are fairly common. Throughout California climbs gaining 4000’ to 7000’ are easy to find, and I suspect I could name 20 or 30 from memory.

As for the Dolomites, there are many more of them in a much more confined area than in any place I’ve seen in North America. Accordingly, I would imagine that a 4hr ride in the Dolomites represents a fuller day than a ride of the same time frame in the typical Rocky Mountain or Sierran locale. There is very simply no 400 square mile area anywhere in America with this saturation of roads to ascend. Not by half.

Riding in the Dolomites means pretty much no flat at all, anywhere, except in the approaches from the Adriatic side. Riding up the Ladin valleys looks flat on a map, but it's not, and the Fasso Valley in particular is sufficiently steady and steep that by the time you get to the base of the Passo Sella you’re beat up (and you haven’t really started the ascent yet).

Keep in mind that I state all this having ridden the Dolomites sitting in the saddle of an Audi A4, and there's nothing that takes the place of actually riding them. I expect to come back someday soon and tackle these mountains with something lighter, and with an engine boasting much less power (but one which will run on pizza and beer).