Cross-country skiing in Italy’s Martell Valley

By
Justin Beckwith
Posted November 20th, 2010

A few minutes after taking a water break and nibbling on a Powerbar I sink back into the rhythm of the diagonal stride. My rollerskis slide easily below me and the burning in my hamstrings momentarily disappears as my eyes are drawn upwards to scan snow-covered mountain peaks. I’m skiing up the Martell Valley in the Sud Tirol Region of Italy, and my mind has entered a state of Zen-like clarity. I feel as though I am no longer an athlete struggling up a 3,000-foot climb or a coach with high expectations for my athletes. My practiced Nordic motions transition into a form of meditation, and I become a body in motion, moving through space doing something I was born to do.
I am here in Italy coaching seven athletes from the Green Mountain Valley School in preparation for the upcoming cross-country ski racing season. We traveled here to take advantage of ideal fall conditions, both in the lush valleys and on the glacier where we can train on freshly groomed snow. Today we have joined the Sud Tirol Biathlon Program, a group of teenage biathletes from central Italy, for a two-hour roller ski up the Martell Valley, a bucolic home to apple orchards, strawberry fields, grazing sheep, and seven glaciers.
Climbing higher, I realize my Zen state might be a mild form of hypoxia; we are nearing 6,000 feet of elevation and exerting a lion’s share of energy over pitted and winding pavement. As we crest a small hill and then descend onto one of the sections of road that actually runs downhill, I am surprised to see a 30-point biathlon range spanning across the river that parallels the road.
“We surely must be entering some sort of Nordic Shangri La,” I think out loud to my athletes. After a few hundred meters we pass by the shooting range and a ski stadium and begin to ascend a set of a dozen or so switchbacks, where the road doubles back and forth on itself at grades near 14 percent. My fatiguing muscles let me know that I’m working hard, and the cold air in my lungs reminds me that winter is just around the corner. Giddy with thoughts of snow and energized by the sensation of movement, I refocus on the arduous climb.
Over the course of the year our athletes are systematically training for one of the most demanding aerobic sports—Nordic ski racing. Our Italian training camp is a confluence of all the factors that make our sport so great: deep culture, interacting with the natural world, and the personal reward that comes from intense physical effort. Beyond results, as coaches, we aim to instill a lifetime of sport and a love for the outdoors by providing exceptional experiences such as this—ski through the Alps.
After the switchbacks and a final grinding grade we come to a lake as blue as the sky, caused by high silica content in the glacial streams that cascade from every corner of the now open valley. Italian ingenuity has created a massive concrete dam that diverts water through the mountain range on the right flank of the valley. Under tons of rock, a large pipe runs at a shallow angle for more than 10 kilometers before plummeting abruptly through a penstock into the town of Laas to create power for the Sud Tirol.
Standing atop the dam, I ask Andi, the biathlon coach, whether the glaciers here are retreating like much of Europe. I wonder if this could explain the impetus for solar panels that seem to span the majority of the rooftops in this region. The government here is already taking proactive measures to harness alternative energy sources in preparation for a compromised water supply in the near future.
We’ve skied nearly two hours, but there is still a lot of work to be done—six kilometers of skiing and eight switchbacks to be exact. As I leave Andi on the dam, I’m joined by an athlete from Quebec who started skiing with our program last year. His technique seems to improve with every session and his enthusiasm is more than enough to carry me to the top of this climb and then some. We exchange a few words and then drop into our work of swinging arms and legs in unison, poling and striding in steady cadence to reach the top of the valley and the end of the pavement.
At the end of the climb, soaked with a good lather of sweat, I reach a small group of Italian and American skiers who already finished their workout. Two coaches have driven vans to the top of a small parking lot, with dry clothes, which I slip into before Andi waves me onward up a trail and past a narrow, misty gorge to arrive at a relic of European history. The now abandoned Paridis Hotel was frequented by only the wealthiest of Europe’s elite in the early 1900s. Mussolini and Hitler even stayed here. The architecture of the pastel red building seems rather prophetic for the era when it was constructed. On the left side of the building the roof and walls make a sweeping turn that resembles a modern airport rather than a traditional timber frame construction.
Standing in a clearing lit bright with sunshine, Andi continues to explain how the bourgoise used to ski here above the hotel where “alles Glacier” (all was glacier). Today there is nothing but trees, grass, and sheep dung. The world is changing here now as it does everywhere, some for the better and perhaps some for the worse. As I watch our young athletes conversing and laughing with their new Italian peers I feel their positive energy and gain faith we will have many more days to do what we love on this earth.
Justin Beckwith is a Nordic ski coach at the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield, VT. He splits his skiing time between groomed tracks, touring, and telemarking. You can reach him at jbeckwith@gmvs.org or through www.gmvsxc.blogspot.com.