Ski slopes in Sella Nevea
After a successful jaunt into the Julian Alps, we thought we’d revisit a haunt of Jonathan’s - Sella Nevea where he learned to ski as a child. This ski are is the closest to the city of Udine so it’s popular with the local italians too. But it was June, so we thought we’d have a walk around the mountains without the snow.
Again, we referred to the Lonely Planet book "Walking in Italy" which we thought would have all the relevant information. It had a good route, but this involved using a cable car to ascend onto the plateau to start the route. We were staying in Palmanova, a town about 2 hours drive away, so we thought we’d check that the cable car was operating. At this point, our information sources in Italy ran dry - no one knew if it was running! In the end we decided to go for it.
We got to the main car park at the bottom of the ski area - which was very nostalgic for Jonathan! There was a great high-ropes course for children at the bottom - and a stationery cable car. Not to be beaten, we thought we’d walk up anyway. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult?
The start of the climb was a road that ran parallel to the nursery slope. And then… a beast of a climb up scree that got more and more difficult! I started to lose my sense of humour when we reached snow! The sun was getting hotter and hotter by this point and we were still not at the top. We decided to abandon our attempt at this point as we would have run out of daylight not long after starting the actual route. The top was in sight so turning back was hard to do. However, coming down steep slopes is harder than going up them so it was a sensible decision.
When we got to the bottom, we looked at the ski map. We’d just walked up a "Red" route. No wonder my legs ached!
