I’m currently in the Italian resort of Livigno. I ran into Fabiano Monti at the ISPO who has been working for years to provide freeriders in Livigno with the best possible information (including a local avalanche forecast). If I wanted to explore the backcountry of Livigno on touring skis. An easy question to answer.
Challenging conditions
The conditions were not quite perfect, especially from a safety perspective. It rained up to high altitude (up to 2400-2500 meters) last week in Livigno (as in other parts of the Alps) and that resulted in heavy and humid snow pack. About 20 cm of fresh snow fell on top of that snow pack on Sunday.
That resulted in quite a few spontaneous avalanches on Monday, but fortunately the snow cover was more stable today. Defensive riding, however, was still the credo. Later that day, two avalanches hit the cross-country trails on the lower parts of the mountain. No one injured, but still, the stability in the snow cover was still tense.
Mottolino
We took the lift towards the Monte delle Neve on the Mottolino side and descended into the valley on the backside of the ski area. From there we had to skin a few hundred meters (vertical that is) towards a saddle (at about 2800 meters) from where we could descent. The avalanche forecast, which was written by Fabiano, told us the avalanche conditions were MODERATE (3 on a scale of 5), so we couldn’t ride any steep faces.
When planning our lines, we also took the terrain around us into account and stayed on the various small ridges as much as possible. Nothing wrong with that, because there was still plenty of powder to be found a couple of days after the dump.
Bluebird
It was a great mellow run, through untracked terrain, with bluebird conditions. The run ended at about 2050 meters altitude on the road at Campaccio, close to Trepalle. There’s definitely more to explore in Livigno!
