Skiing the Sellaronda!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This was our day today. We skied the Sellaronda today and we saw scenes like this all day. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

This was the equivalent of doing the Tour De Chairs at Big Sky Resort, though the scenery is a little bit different.

We got started by walking down to the chair lift just around the corner from our hotel. The lift started at 8:30 a.m. and we got first chair. Really!

We rode up to an area called Monte Pana, where we met our guide, Melissa.

Melissa is a ski instructor and guide; her official title is "Maestro di Sci". She spent the next seven hours with us, guiding us around the Sella mountains in a clockwise direction. We began skiing with her at 9:00 a.m. and returned to the place where we met her at 3:30 p.m. Here I am with Melissa:

I could not tell you where any of these photos were taken, nor could I replicate the journey without assistance. But here are photos of what we experienced:

It's amazing how close we got to the mountains here!

We stopped for a terrific lunch at a hut. When Brock walked in, he created quite a stir! Everyone noticed him with his bright green head-to-toe outfit. The reaction was quite comical! Any way, we had a spaghetti carbonara that was out of this world.

Skiing the Sellaronda should be on every skier's bucket list! This was a stunning place to ski, really breath-taking. We will remember it always! It was a true test of endurance, like running a marathon. You have to ski hard, and you have to ski fast to complete it. 7 hours elapsed time is a long time to be on your feet.

Today we skied 20.44 miles, 19,056 vertical feet, 4 ski areas, and 23 lifts: 16 chairs, 5 gondolas, 1 poma lift, and 1 large tram.

The skiing was all groomed runs, all on-piste, nothing was that hard to ski, but it was a lot to take in. The snow conditions were much better than they were at Kitzbuhel, but there were still a few slick places. It is evident that this is an off year for snow for all of Europe, and most of the snow we skied on was man-made.

We were not alone; there were quite a few other people doing the same thing. Brock was skiing with Larry Boroviak in a way, listening to the playlist of music that he put together after Larry passed away.

We celebrated with a hearty dinner back at our hotel.

We also celebrate Denise Boroviak and Bob and Jean Mathews, who skied the Sellaronda years ago with Larry, and we thank them for recommending that we ski the Sellaronda and giving us such good advice! It would have been a shame if we had missed out on this, and we wouldn't have known about it without their help.