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A little "fly & ski" trip to Bolzano, March 2016

Between the 17th and 19th of May, another fun flight with the SR22 ex Luebeck (EDHL) was planned by me and my father. Destination: to be decided two days before departure.

Three days before, it became obvious that the weather would be almost perfect in Central Europe, especially over the Alps. Also, the south side of the Alps had been blessed with a lot of snow between the beginning of February and the beginning of March. In short: the perfect occasion for a short “fly and ski” trip to Bolzano (LIPB), to go skiing in the Dolomites, in nearby Obereggen / Latemar ski area.

A hotel was booked in Bolzano city centre, a rental car was booked at the airport, and our gear for skiing was packed.

Here’s the weather situation on the morning of the 17th of March. DWD prog chart:

Sat image:

SigWX chart:

As usual on such flights, I plan IFR up to TULSI (just north of the Alps) and then VFR to destination. Here is the second part of the route in detail:

For traditionalists, here is the ICAO flightplan form, showing an ETE of 02:49 hours:

And here’s the Gramet:

First thing at the airport was to load the ski gear into the Cirrus. This turned out to work really well. Skis fit nicely between the rear backrests.

As you can see, there was some fog at the airport.

In fact, during takeoff, visibility was down to 400 meters. Here we are, two minutes after liftoff, looking back at the airport. There was just a tiny patch of fog, but right over the airport it was!

We climbed to FL100, our “standard” cruising level.

A little more fog straight down the course of the river Elbe.

Passing Volkswagen-City, aka Wolfsburg.

Nothing but good weather up ahead.

A little snow in the Harz region.

Fast forward 200 miles to the south of Germany. Here we are, west of the Chiemsee.

The Alps and the Inn valley ahead.

A look to the across the “front range”, just before entering Austria.

This is when we cancelled IFR and called Innsbruck Radar for our VFR crossing clearance towards the Brenner Pass. Due to traffic, they asked us to descend to 9,000 feet, which was not too welcome, since we would have to climb back to 11,000 feet a few minutes later due to terrain.

Here we are, almost abeam Innsbruck.

Now at 11,000 feet, looking back towards Innsbruck.

The Tuxer Alpen. That is some serious snow there.

Just past the Brenner, abeam Sterzing / Vipiteno.

After Sterzing, this time, instead of flying the usual route (which would be down the Eisacktal / Valle Isarco) and Brixen to Bozen, we opted to take the shortcut: straight over the Penser Joch / Passo di Pennes and into the Sarntal / Val Sarentino. This will give you an idea:

Here we are over the Sarntal, already in a shallow descent for Bozen. Somewhere down there is Locher Airfield, home of the Pocket Rocket.

Just to the northwest of Bolzano, Jenesien / San Genesio Atesino, a wonderful place for hiking, which can be reached by taking a funicular from the bottom of the valley.

Since there was an IFR landing in progress (and since we still had to lose some altitude) we asked for a 360 which was granted directly over the city of Bolzano. Always nice for taking some photos!

In the centre of the photo, Waltherplatz / Piazza Walther, the heart of the city and the place where we’d have lunch an hour later.

Short final for runway 01.

Always a nice view from Apron 3 across to the Etschtal / Val d’Adige.

I wholeheartedly recommend Bolzano airport, be it for ski trips or trips with other activities. Apron 3 is a 200 meter walk over to the terminal building (if you have luggage, the staff will even help you out with transport for these 200 meters, even if you haven’t booked any “handling”) . The terminal building is small, and Hertz and Europcar are right there. What’s even better: the rental cars are parked just outside the door, 20 meters away. I like such kinds of setups.

Here’s our hotel in the centre of Bolzano, Scala Stiegl. A good place, but a tad expensive (possibly only in the ski season).

Here we are, having lunch together with a friend, on Waltherplatz. The magnolia were in full bloom and it was almost 20 degrees C.


In the late afternoon, we toured the beautiful surroundings of Bolzano with the car a bit. My father (who studied in Bolzano for some time) knows lots of nice places there, and most of them are reached within just a few minutes from the city centre. Here we are at Schloss Rafenstein, a castle ruin on top of a mountain just to the north of the city. It’s a couple of kilometres up the Sarntal. You can see the river Talfer down in the valley.

Another shot. If you look closely, you see Bolzano airport there. Four reds on the PAPI, as would be expected from a hilltop.

But now let’s talk skiing, which was the subject of the next day. First of all, here is a map to show you where Obereggen is, and how close it is to Bolzano:

We left the hotel in Bolzano at 8:00, arrived at Obereggen at 8:30, and where up on the mountain before 9:00. Like Bolzano airport, Obereggen it’s a place where everything is located nicely next to each other: car park, ski pass, ski rental and entrance to the gondola lift. Here’s the ski map of the Latemar ski resort.

As you can see, it is not huge, but neither small at all. Lots of choice for a few days of skiing. You can also see that it is not a super high altitude ski area, but not too low either, with the highest slopes starting at 2500 meters. Still, in mid-March, the best plan is to start the skiing at 9:00 and be done between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon, which is exactly what we did.

Needless to say, the conditions were just perfect and we really enjoyed the day.

Here’s one for Peter :

It’s the black one from Passo Feudo down to Pampeago, one of my favourite ones there. Must do that in the morning though, as it’s facing southeast.

Here’s my dad, who turned 75 last week!




We were back in Bolzano just after 3:00 in the afternoon and relaxed for the end of the day:

Here’s the weather for day three:

Interesting that the chart showed some very light rain over Germany, but with no clouds at all! Wonder how that is supposed to work!

Here’s the SigWx chart, with the route shown:

Here’s the sat image:

And here’s the Gramet, which turned out to be rather accurate, so I have no complaints (we obviously didn’t fly those level changes):

For who’s interested, here is the W&B for that flight (courtesy of autorouter):

I you look closely, you will see that we departed with 70 gallons of FOB. Officially, there is no Avgas for sale at Bolzano, but inofficially…. you know….suffice to say that the people of the Aeroclub were very accommodating. The fuel is a bit expensive though (2.80€), so if one is headed south after Bolzano, the suggestion is to fuel up at Trento (LIDT), where Avgas is currently only 2.05€ (cheaper than in most places in Germany!). They also have mogas there.

After departure, here’s another view of Bolzano, with the river Eisack coming form the right and the river Talfer coming from straight ahead. I also marked Burgruine Rafenstein, which I mentioned above.

This time, we took the “standard” route, via the Eisacktal. Here’s a nice view of the Schlern (Sciliar), one of the most characteristic mountains of South Tyrol.

To the left, Ritten (Renon) ski area. Much smaller than Latemar though, and not the least comparable.

Another shot of the Schlern and some other famous mountains of the Dolomites, such as the Sella.

Here we are, level at 10,500 feet. The Brenner Pass is on the left of the photo. Our altitude allowed us to cut the corners and just proceed direct to Innsbruck (INN).

Just before reaching the Brenner: the Pfitschtal / Val di Vizze. A cold place in winter.

Here we are in Austria, with Innsbruck straight ahead. The Birgitzköpfl is to the left, the Patscherkofel and Glugezer are to the right (which is the mountain where, in 1964, British-Eagle flight 802/6 crashed on the approach to Innsbruck, killing 83 people. For details see here.

The Stubaital.

Here we are, north of Innsbruck, overlooking the eastern parts of the Karwendelgebirge.

Minutes later, we changed to Munich Radar, changed to FL100 and picked up our IFR clearance, which went completely smoothly. A few minutes, later, here is the great shame of Bavarian GA infrastructure politics, Oberpfaffenhoffen (EDMO).

And just a few minutes later, the even greater shame of Bavarian GA infrastructure politics, Fürstenfeldbruck (ETSF).

Just to the northwest of Munich, we received at DCT of 200 NM, to LARET.

The rest of the flight was nothing worth talking about and mostly above a cloud layer (as per the Gramet).

Shooting the ILS into Lübeck.

Despite some headwind, only just over three hours of flight in the end, thanks to a very direct routing. Back at home for lunch!

Last Edited by boscomantico at 04 Apr 21:42
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Once again an excellent and inspiring report, thank you very much!

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

Great report

At this rate, we ought to have a “EuroGA ski-in”. The only problem is that most of the Germans started skiing at the age of 3

With a late winter this time, March was good. Actually there is still snow now, even on the lower (4000ft) locations in France.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

The only problem is that most of the Germans started skiing at the age of 3

As has been pointed out before, your estimation of the average skiing abilities of Germans and other nationalities alike is grossly inaccurate.

There is always a few absolute beginners and a few pros, but most people on the slopes are and will always be intermediate. I started skiing at age 25 – too late to ever become really good, it seems. And I picked up snowboarding just this season – making very small and slow turns on blue slopes only (I found Kaprun better than Zell in that regard, btw → long, wide, easy-going blue runs).

A skiing fly-in would be great fun.

Thanks for the nice report → bosco! Inspiring, as I originally learned skiing in that area and didn’t quite have the area in mind to fly into for skiing. It does, of course involve an Alps crossing, which makes it less accessible than e.g. LOWZ, which only needs good conditions on the Northern side – and you still need to drive to the skiing area, so no good for a day trip. But a trip like yours? Great!

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Great trip and photos @boscomantico

The Brenner Pass is on my list…im guessing its better to fly it for the first time with someone who know where they are going!

Alex
Shoreham (EGKA) White Waltham (EGLM), United Kingdom

The Brenner Pass is on my list…im guessing its better to fly it for the first time with someone who know where they are going!

It’s generally regarded as the easiest Alpine crossing, so in reasonable weather it should be nl problem on your own.

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

Bosco much as I would like to praise the report, the report is spoiled for me when you post a picture with the registration of your Cirrus.

Did you inherit this offensive registration? Has no one queried it in Germany as it would appear to breach the criminal code? Specifically Strafgesetzbuch 86a?

Fortunately Termeno sulla strada del vino does not have a landing strip, the registration of your Cirrus would bring back unfortunate memories of this paese’s role in the rat line after WW2.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

I asked him some day but I think I’m not alone. Since they bought the aircraft new, I guess this was a bad joke from Cirrus (or unintended, who knows). But I never think that he or his father is what you suggest, Robert.

Last Edited by N210FK_C10T at 05 Apr 14:30

I can only say that we have received numerous incredulous comments on this registration in the past.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thanks for the great report.
Amazing what you can do with with IR

As to the final part, crossing the Brenner Pass, it is not that challenging.
Coincidentally did it yesterday in VFR – and at FL65…

Coming across the lakes, crossing LOWI and following Brenner motorway to LIPB.
Unfortunately, with the clouds gathering a bit faster than expected, I only had time for a coffee, not skiing ;-)
And with my hands full as a novice, I am not sufficiently relaxed to take pics yet.
Plus on the way back, it got pretty bumpy all the way to LOWI.

Next time I will try the route via Meran and Reschenpass or, if I sit behind more than 110hp, follow boscomanticos shortcut.
Still getting used to it all.

PS as to the registration, I would guess revenge for a hard bargain ;-)

...
EDM_, Germany
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