Impianti and other Words

27/03/2025

It has taken us a while, years in fact, to get our heads around the names for the different types of infrastructure that get us around the ski slopes. Italians use the generic term “Impianti” but also have some specific words for each different type.

Types of ski lift

There is the Seggiovia (Chair Lift) that picks you up while wearing your skis and carries you in seated position. A bar is lowered to hold you in place and provides footrests for your skis. At the top you have to propel yourself off onto the piste, something that beginners face with a modicum of dread, will you manage to ski off in a straight line and avoid taking out your neighbours? Newer chairlifts slow down at the bottom and top of the ride so that you can sit down and shove off in relaxed style. Older lifts swing in from behind and wallop you behind the knees – it’s one way to get you sat down.

Chairlifts in Cervinia

Then there is the Telecabina, which we might call a Gondola or a Bubble. These are strings of individual cabins and each may hold anything from half a dozen people to 20, either either seated or standing. You have to take your skis or snowboard off and enter on foot. The skis or the snowboard might go on the outside, another feat of coordination that takes a little while to master as you load them in the provided slots and then retrieve them at the top, all while the cabins are moving. Or you might take them inside the cabin with you. There is a curious etiquette when boarding telecabins, groups of friends will cluster together and wait for an empty cabin. If you are a pair or singleton you have to work your way around the groups in order to fill the spaces in the other cabins otherwise you’ll be waiting for ages.

Telecabina at Valtournenche

Finally there is the big one, the Funivia, which we might call a Cable Car. These huge hanging buses take can take over a hundred people. You tend to get two cableways, one is ascending while the other is descending. Like a Telecabina you have to enter on foot carrying your skis or board. When a resort is busy you will find a large group of people waiting for the next ride and the staff will chivvy people on to fill up all the corners of the cable car. It can get very friendly and a bit whiffy, especially if you’re a shorter person crammed up against someone’s armpit.

A Funivia picture from back in 2018

As well as these three options you might have the ‘Tapis’ or Magic Carpet, that you slide onto with your skis on and in a standing position. These will take you gently uphill on a conveyer belt and tend to be used in beginners areas or where a small hill needs to be navigated and it’s not worth installing a bigger lift.

There are two main types of ‘Drag Lifts’ – I have only ever seen these called Skilifts in Italy. The Button Lift is inserted between the legs and drags you up the hill. The trick is NOT to try to sit on it, another beginners trap. They aren’t designed to take your weight, just to assist your slide up the hill. The other drag lift is my personal nemesis – the T bar – similar to a button lift but in the shape of an inverted T, you rest your buttocks on an arm of the T or – if you are brave – go up as a pair with one on each arm of the T. I had a couple of unfortunate incidents on a steep T bar in Borovets many years ago and now I tense up every time I go near one.

The lost phone

The reason I mention all of these is because I had to have a phone call in Italian and try to explain where we were parked. We had left La Thuile and made our way via Aosta – where we topped up our LPG at the very reliable Valpetroli fuel station – to Valtournenche. The large car park here is somewhere we’ve stayed before for accessing the Cervina-Valtournenche ski area.

Parking at Valtournenche

We got ourselves settled in the car park and decided to take a stroll into the village along the riverside path that leaves the end of the car park. Part way along Paul’s eagle eyes spotted an i-phone so we had to do our good deed for the day and try to get it back to it’s rightful owner. We did a bit of shopping, hoping that someone would phone it, but no one had tried to call it when we got back to the van. After a bit of investigation we managed to respond to a Whatsapp message and get hold of the owner’s boyfriend. Between his English and my rudimentary Italian we managed to establish that they would meet us at our Camper, but it took several attempts to describe where we were parked as my mind went blank when searching for the Italian Funivia or Telecabina.

Our reward for finding the phone. What a shame Paul doesn’t like champagne!

Skiing Valtournenche

The following morning we were up for the first lift (sorry, I meant to say “telecabina”) to the slopes. The snow was in excellent condition, squeaky and fresh at the top and only slightly slushy come the afternoon. It was lovely to be back in one of our favourite places on such a nice day. We zoomed around the slopes from top to bottom, deciding not to venture over to Zermatt. We were impressed with the new lift they had installed to replace the old Goillet chairlift. The old lift was slow, uncomfortable and very exposed so that you’d be frozen by the time you reached the top. Now it’s been replaced by a modern six seater chair lift with heated seats and a protective canopy to shield people from cold winds. Unfortunately the side effect of this is that the runs from the lift are much more popular – we liked having them to ourselves.

At the end of the day I decided to ski the long run all the way down to the Valtournenche car park. Paul declined to join me and I don’t blame him, piles of slush had mounded up on the slopes and made for very heavy going. But I had to do it, the snow was disappearing from the bottom end of the run fast and I knew that if I didn’t do it now I might not get a chance this year.