Trip Report
If you took SnowBrains’ advice to ski the Italian Dolomites during the Olympics, here’s what actually happens: you don’t get chaos. You don’t get outrageous crowds. You don’t get stuck in some overpriced, overhyped Olympic frenzy. You can—and in my case, did—get a surprisingly smooth ski trip to the Dolomiti Superski area.
Over the past two seasons, I’ve had the unique ability to fly standby thanks to a connection with an airline employee. That flexibility has turned into a habit: watch the snow, wait for some free time, and go. As a music teacher with limited time off during ski season, I don’t have the luxury of long, carefully planned trips. When conditions line up, I find good snow—and I’m gone.
This year, I had my eye on something bigger: checking off a bucket-list trip to a Winter Olympic region. On paper, it sounded like a terrible idea—crowds, inflated prices, logistical headaches. But the SnowBrains article argued the opposite: avoid staying in Cortina, lean into the scale of Dolomiti Superski, and you might find surprisingly uncrowded slopes in the middle of peak season. With all-time conditions lining up during a break between storms, I decided to test it.
Here’s how it played out.
Instead of booking in Cortina—where four nights were going for thousands of euros—I looked in adjacent valleys on Airbnb. Prices dropped dramatically. I found a place about a kilometer from Falcade for around $600 for four nights, cheaper than what I paid on a non-Olympic trip the year before.
Score one for SnowBrains.
Next, I followed another key piece of advice and flew into Munich instead of dealing with Olympic traffic through Milan. The result: a wide-open airport, no customs lines, an effortless rental car pickup, and a smooth five-hour drive through the Alps with virtually no traffic.
Score two.
Then came the skiing. One of the biggest takeaways from the article was scale—Dolomiti Superski isn’t one resort, it’s a massive network. That size creates freedom. I felt that immediately on day one at Falcade and San Pellegrino, where the longest lift line I saw all morning was about three minutes.
Three minutes. In February. During the Olympics.
Score three.
- Related: Dolomiti Superski, Italy, Trip Report: A Week of Super Skiing, Super Mountains, & Super Food
Even the lift line culture—an all-in, no-rules shuffle that would feel aggressive in the U.S.—never became an issue because there simply weren’t enough people for it to matter. After a few hours, I drove 25 minutes to Ski Civetta and skied into clearing skies, dramatic Dolomite spires, and wide-open runs.
By the end of day one, I had skied three resorts and logged 44,591 vertical feet. Those are numbers I usually only see on uncrowded midweek days back home.
Day two put the SnowBrains theory to the ultimate test: the Sellaronda. This is where you’d expect crowds—iconic terrain, interconnected resorts, the heart of the Dolomites experience. I started early at Marmolada, expecting at least some kind of line. There was none.
I moved clockwise through Arabba, Canazei, Val Gardena, and Alta Badia, eventually looping back to Marmolada by the end of the day. My longest chairlift wait was about five minutes. The longest line of the day—a cable car—was 30 minutes. Those were the only two lines that lasted longer than three minutes.
The rest of the day? Open slopes, cold squeaky snow, and lap after lap. Another 44,979 vertical feet, with zero sense of Olympic congestion.
Score four.
Day three was when the “size equals freedom” concept really clicked. I skied the Sellaronda again, this time counterclockwise, using what I’d learned the day before to avoid even those minor choke points. Like at any home mountain, once you understand the flow, everything opens up. Most lifts were ski-on. Most runs were empty.
And in a twist I didn’t expect, I actually watched more Olympic coverage back at my lodging than I did while in Italy—despite being just miles from the events. That’s how separated the experience feels. What happens in Cortina really does stay in Cortina.
Day three ended with 56,930 vertical feet—my biggest day of the trip.
On the final day, a snowstorm rolled in, giving me a chance to test one more piece of advice: choose your terrain wisely. I headed to Kronplatz, a more sheltered resort known for handling the weather better than the jagged peaks around the Sella massif. Once again, it worked exactly as advertised. Minimal wind, no lift lines, and soft snow all day.
I skied until my legs gave out—another 24,838 vertical feet—bringing the trip total to 171,338 vertical feet.
In four days. During the Olympics.
Going into the trip, I told myself it would be worth it no matter what—crowds, costs, and complications included. But by following the SnowBrains approach—stay outside Cortina, use the scale of the region, and avoid the Olympic bottlenecks entirely—the reality flipped.
Instead of fighting the Olympics, I skied around them.
And what I found wasn’t chaos. It was four days of cruising some of the most beautiful terrain, in incredible conditions, with barely a crowd in sight.
An experience I won’t forget anytime soon.
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