The Ortler Alps Ski Tour explores the Stelvio National Park, in the South Tyrol region of Northern Italy. Extremely comfortable huts with great Italian food, high mountain glacial scenery and big ski peaks abound. There are many long, north facing glacier descents to enjoy.

Tour Info

This is a classic hut tour, with a number of great ski peaks and long, north facing glacier descents. The huts in the area are very comfortable, with hot showers available in some, en suite rooms in others and even a sauna at the Pizzini Hut! We spend more than one night in each hut, allowing us to enjoy day tours with lighter packs on – and plenty of options are available in the area, so it’s possible to tour in most weather and snow conditions.

Suitability

This is an intermediate level trip. To take part you should be at Fitness Level 3 and Tech Level 3 (see our Fitness/Experience guidelines below). You need previous multi day hut touring experience in order to join this tour.  For reference, Ski Club of GB Purple/Gold off piste ski standard is required for this trip.   As this is a multi day tour, if you haven’t skied with us before, then we may ask for a reference to confirm your experience/ski ability for the trip. Typically there will be 900-1200m of climb a day, with options to make things easier or harder along the way, so you can expect to be skinning for 3-4 hours a day. Type of ascent: we use 100% skinning on this tour – approx 6000m of skinning up, 6000m of skiing down.

Guiding ratio

One IFMGA guide skiing with 6 clients.

Included in price

• 6 days of guiding
• All guides expenses
• Transfer from hotel to tour start point and return
• 2 nights hotel accommodation including breakfast and evening meals
• 5 nights accommodation in mountain huts, including breakfast and evening meals

Excluded from price (see factsheet for extra costs info)

• Lunches and drinks
• Flights and transfers to resort
• Insurance
• Equipment hire

Hotels

Our meeting point in Zernez is the Hotel Spoel, a friendly family run hotel, with good food and offering comfortable accommodation. Rooms are provided on a twin (or occasionally triple) sharing basis, but If you wish to book a single room please let us know and we will confirm availability. Hotel details can be found on our Accommodation page.

Huts

For overnights in the high mountains we will use mountain huts. This tour stays in friendly Italian huts with great food, good coffee and a super relaxed atmosphere. For more info please read the Using Alpine Huts article which provides an overview of typical facilities, average costs to help you budget for lunches/drinks, and general info on hut etiquette. Also, our Ski Touring FAQs page answers some of the most common questions we are asked about multi day ski touring and logistics etc.

ABTOT Protected

This trip is protected by ABTOT – Alpine Guides Ltd, Membership Number 5394.  For further information, please visit our Financial Protection page.

Subject to weather and snow conditions, the plan is as follows. Please note that this is a sample itinerary only – on trips like this, itineraries are always subject to change as the current snow, weather and avalanche conditions need to be taken into account. This is an essential part of safety planning for all backcountry skiing, so please be ready for changes as part of your trip.

Saturday

You should arrange outward travel on Saturday, arriving by 6-7pm latest in time for the briefing at your accommodation. Your guide will run through kit checks and safety routines, as well as hand out any rental equipment, before going on to discuss the current weather and mountain conditions and how these affect our plans. We’ll have maps and guidebooks of the area to show you, so if you’ve any further questions or last minute requests, then this is the ideal time to bring them up. Overnight in the valley.

Sunday

AM Travel to Ortler. Skin up to the Branca Hut, including a shorter day tour with skills refreshment and safety training along the way.

Isla Persa – Branca Hut

After an early breakfast, we drive over to Italy and then on up to the village of Santa Caterina in the Stelvio National Park. Our tour starts here, with a steady skin up the Valle di Forni.

Along the way we’ll do some skills refreshment and make a short tour further up the valley to Isla Persa. This is a great little summit which has an excellent series of north facing powder bowls leading back toward the Branca Hut – which is a very comfortable spot, with great food and hot showers available for the next three nights.

750m ascent, 450m descent ~3-4hrs

Monday – Tuesday

Branca Hut – day tours

Monday and Tuesday are spent day touring, returning to the Branca Hut each night.  There are numerous excellent day tours from the Branca Hut, a typical classic being Punta San Matteo (3678m), which gives a great north facing glacier descent. The scenic climb up the Forno Glacier holds no undue difficulties, before finally reaching the east ridge of Punta San Matteo a short distance before the summit.

On the descent, the upper reaches of the Forno Glacier consists of a lovely series of powder bowls making the long climb to the summit well worth while.

1250m ascent and descent, ~5-6hrs

Wednesday

Branca Hut to Pizzini Hut

Depending on weather and snow conditions, there are several different ways of traversing between the Branca and Pizzini Huts.

The classic way is to make the traverse of Monte Pasquale (3553m) – this involves climbing the SE Ridge of the peak, in order to ski down the NW Face and on down the north facing Cedec Glacier, which often holds powder.

The Pizzini Hut itself is a large, well equipped building – which even boasts a sauna!

1000m ascent, 800m descent ~5hrs

Thursday

Monte Cevedale

From the Pizzini Hut, the day starts with a long skin up the Cedec Glacier in order to gain a high plateau at an altitude of 3500m, just above the Casati Hut – depending on conditions, this point can also be reached via a roped climb up to the Casati Hut.

Heading southwards, the glacier climbs up to a final steepening and a short snow ridge leading to the summit of Cevedale (3769m), which marks the high point of our tour. In good conditions it’s sometimes possible to skin all the way to the summit, but more often the ascent involves a roped climb from a ski depot below the summit.  The views from here to the nearby Konigspitze are particularly spectacular.

The descent begins by skiing some steep, north facing pitches down onto the Cedec Glacier, which takes us back to the Pizzini Hut for a second night.

1100m ascent, 1100m descent ~5-6hrs

Friday

Cima dei Forni

On our final day we climb one of the cols and summits of the Cima dei Forni, before making a long descent back to the valley.

Which route we follow depends entirely on conditions, as there are both north facing powder bowls and south facing spring snow descents on either side of the mountain.

Both ways lead back to the valley where the tour starts, in order to drive back to Zernez in Switzerland for the final night.

500-800m ascent, 1300-1600m descent ~4-5hrs

PM return to Zernez in Switzerland.

Saturday

Return travel should be arranged on Saturday morning, after your final nights accommodation.

Your course starts and finishes in Zernez near St Moritz, a convenient access point for touring in this region of Switzerland and tours in Italy nearby. The most common way to reach Zernez is fly into Zurich, then take a train along the main line towards St Moritz – Zernez is just a few stops away from its famous neighbour (3.5 hr journey time from Zurich).

Flights and transfers

• Fly to Zurich with numerous budget airlines, for an overview of the best options check out the excellent Sky Scanner website.
• Train from Zurich to Zernez: https://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html (integrated Swiss travel website, displays all connecting bus and train services)
• Alternatively fly to Milan, hire a car and drive to Zernez in around 2.5 hrs (public transport is tricky).
• If you plan to arrive by train and you also plan to travel around Switzerland before/after the trip, then purchasing a Swiss Travel Pass (details on website above) could save you some money, as you get half fare on the cable cars in many resorts, as well as on the trains and buses. If you purchase a Swiss card the journey from the airport to Zernez and back will be included. It isn’t worth buying one for this course alone however.
• Alternatively hire a car in Zurich (approx 4 hours driving time): www.arguscarhire.com / www.holidayautos.co.uk

For flights and other travel options, including train, coach and driving, visit our Travel Planning page.

To enjoy this trip you should be comfortable operating at Fitness Level 3, and Ski Tech Level 3:

Fitness Level 3
You do 3-4 hours cv training/sport per week. At this level you are happy doing a 5-6 hr hillwalk, 40-50ml cycle or 3-4hr mountain bike ride without being totally exhausted. If you are into challenges – then the thought of doing a road sportive, or training to do a 1/2 (or maybe even a full) marathon, wouldn’t seem too ridiculous. On foot: you should be able to do the full Langdale Horseshoe: Langdale – Pike of Stickle – Angle Tarn – Bow Fell – Crinkle Crags – Pike of Blisco – Langdale in a day without finishing up exhausted. On skis: you can skin uphill at 300-400m/hr for 3-4 hrs a day (ie 8-1200m of ascent each day).

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Tech Level 3
Confirmed Off Piste Skier. You can put down a reasonable set of tracks in powder, but difficult snow types – eg heavy wet snow, crusts, poor visibility or 40dg slopes – can all cause problems (though you can cope with them safely, if not elegantly!) *Equivalent to Ski Club of GB Off Piste Level: Purple – Advanced*
Likely to say: ‘I’d like to handle difficult snow/steep slopes more confidently in better style’
Our Advice: Off piste coaching still useful. Intermediate off piste weeks are at your level too. If you want to get into ski touring, try a touring course or intro level ski tour. If you’re an established ski mountaineer, then intermediate level tours are generally suitable.

To view all of our Ski Fitness Levels and Off Piste Technical Levels, please visit our Ski Ability page.

If you need to top up your fitness for this trip, please see our Ski Touring Training Advice page.

Off Piste Ski Ability Levels

To join this trip, you need to be skiing at Tech Level 3 or higher on our 5 point scale. Use the descriptions above and the following video to help work out your current off piste ski ability level.

Hut to Hut Touring Equipment List

Just remember, every extra kilo on your back knocks 10% off your enjoyment on the descents – so try and keep the weight down!

Technical Clothing

• Waterproof Jacket – preferably lightweight and breathable
• Overtrousers/ski pants – preferably with side zips
• Fleece mid layer – or equivalent
• Socks – specialist ski socks or a warm loop lined pair of mountain socks
• Wicking thermal top – not cotton please…
• Thermal leggings or ski pants
• Thin inner gloves
• Warm ski gloves or mittens, if you suffer from cold hands
• Warm hat
• Spare fleece/lightweight duvet jacket

Personal Items

• Water container – at least 1 litre
• Personal medications and blister kit – regular meds, zinc oxide tape, compeed and painkillers etc
• Lightweight head torch
• Ski goggles
• Sun glasses – CE rated 3 or 4 with side protection
• Sun and lip cream – factor 30+
• Wallet, passport, Alpine Club/BMC card (hut discount) and insurance docs

Hut Overnight Items

• Small wash kit
• Spare lightweight t-shirt/socks/pants
• Silk sheet liner
• Ear plugs
• (Hut slippers for indoor use, blankets/duvets and pillows are provided by the huts)

Technical Equipment

• Rucsac 35/45l – try and avoid ones covered in too many features, just ski and ice axe attachments required
• Ski mountaineering boots
• Skis with touring bindings – lightweight pin binding setup required. Heavy freeride setups not suitable. Older style bar/rail bindings (Fritschi Freeride, Marker Duke etc) not allowed – please update your kit!
• Ski strap – to keep skis together on your rucksack if we need to carry them
• Ski poles – with good size 5cm+ baskets (telescopic poles are not needed)
• Climbing skins – they come with the skis if you hire your kit
• Harscheisen (ski crampons) – they come with the skis if you hire your kit
• Metal snow shovel – must be a full metal shovel (plastic blades don’t work in real avalanche debris!)
• Avalanche probe
• Avalanche transceiver – must be a modern digital model (older analogue models are now obsolete)
• Harness, with 120cm sling and locking karabiner
• Crampons – lightweight model
• Ice Axe – lightweight model
• Ski Helmet – lightweight ski touring or backcountry model preferred.  Wearing a helmet is compulsory on descents and may be needed on other parts of the route depending on conditions

Your guide will have all other safety kit, first aid and survival equipment.

Recommendations and Advice
Visit the Knowledge Base section of our website, where we publish an annual review of the years best new skis, boots and touring equipment, plus a range of other interesting tips and recommendations. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, please get in touch!

Purchasing Equipment
Backcountry UK in Otley offer an excellent ski touring boot fitting service, one of the best ranges of ski mountaineering equipment in the UK and top notch advice.

Hiring Equipment
Please visit our Equipment Hire page for recommended hire shops in your resort, and Alpine Guides hire equipment price list (safety equipment is provided free of charge on certain courses – please consult price inclusions).

For this trip you must have specialist travel insurance providing medical, emergency search/rescue and repatriation cover for off piste skiing and ski touring, as outlined in the trip itinerary. We also strongly recommend that you purchase cancellation cover, in case you’re unable to attend your trip due to personal circumstances or injury. Please arrange your insurance as soon as your trip is confirmed to run.

Further details can be found on our insurance info page.