Making the Most of Cervinia

17/03/2026

After Monterosa we had a bit of a debate. Where should we go for a final few days of skiing in the Aosta valley? We could go somewhere we hadn’t been, do a little tour of the small resorts, or just return to somewhere we love.

With a significant snowfall on the cards we decided against touring around. We would find somewhere to hunker down for the duration. I fancied going back to Pila and Paul wanted to go back to Cervinia. Paul talked me round with the argument that it might be more difficult to visit Cervinia in future years so we should make the most of it this year. His compromise was that we will explore more new ski areas next year.

Self Service Pudding

On the way up the valley we stopped somewhere we had seen many times but always shot past. This is a location on the side of the road that used to be a weighbridge. The ramp and weighing platform are still there, but no longer in use. Instead, under the cover of the hut, a local dairy has two self service fridges where you can purchase yoghurt and desserts. There is also a still and sparkling water dispenser in the same location. Sadly for Paul all of the desserts were set milk based options, chocolate budino (a word more closely associated in my mind with a blood sausage), caramel pudding and panna cotta. Paul has a definite aversion to anything blancmange textured. I’m not keen either but a swift stir makes it less wobbly and edible for me.

Once a weighbridge – now dispensing dairy goodness

A day of snow

We spent a day in Valtournenche, skiing the local area and then moved on to the Cervinia sosta where we got settled next to a lovely Hymer Crossover. We quite often joke that our van is a wannabe Hymer Crossover. All the style but not the substance. What does that say about us?

On the Saturday the forecast snow arrived. The forecast kept changing but in the end we must have had about 80cm of new snow down in the sosta and over a meter higher up in the resort. It was a great day for watching the Six Nations Super Saturday, even though the result wasn’t what we wanted. The snow piled up outside and the snowploughs made occasional forays into the sosta to clear what they could. Our next door neighbours made a large snow person in front of the Hymer, a successful effort to prevent the snowplough from venturing too close.

After a day in the van we were looking forward to powder conditions on the slopes, but due to the volume of snow many of the resort runs were closed. We could see on the webcams that the few open slopes were absolutely full of people like ants on sugar, so we decided it wouldn’t be worth it. Instead we took ourselves out for a snowshoe walk.

Snowshoe from the sosta

We headed over to the Motoslitte (skidoo) area where there has always been a signposted snowshoe route. The signs weren’t there any more, they had been replaced by multiple signs saying “No Pedestrians”. Which I can sort of understand given that there are skidoos driving around the area.

We looked for other paths on the map, the issue being that summer paths don’t necessarily translate to good winter walking. But a couple of hairpins up the road a track headed out into the woods so we thought we’d give it a go and seemed to end up on a reasonable route.

We had a lovely walk in the end, some of it had already been walked by other people and some of it was the skidoo track. Nothing was too deeply snowy although we did have a couple of instances of stepping slightly off the path and ending up thigh deep in the snow. Our route took us up past the Helipad and across one of the (closed) Cielo Alto slopes, before heading back down to town. We had a little investigation of the changes in town (a new Crai supermarket and several new hotel/apartment blocks) before returning across the top of the tunnel to the sosta.

Skiing in Cervinia

The following day the slopes were nearly all open. We topped up our passes and ventured out to the slopes, picking up the bus from outside the sosta. We got out at a different stop this time to see whether there were any easier ways to the slopes. This option bought back memories from a couple of years ago when an out of control skier slammed into my back as we skied the cut through to the gondola station. No such issues this time, but we were so cautious it ended up being a bit of heavy work poling ourselves along.

When we picked up the bus on the way back that afternoon the driver explained that if we get on before the bus station then we do have to pay twice. Once for the journey to the bus station and then a second time to get from the station to the sosta. It was as we suspected, and another example of a very poorly put together public transport solution. I was pleased though because we managed to have the conversation in very simple Italian (with a few English words thrown in by the bus driver) and the driver didn’t charge us twice anyway.

We had looked forward to our first day after the snow with great anticipation. The morning started well, but the afternoon soon deteriorated with strong winds closing lifts and making some runs almost impossible to ski. Gusts pushed people around and blasted snow into the air, obscuring vision and bringing people to a standstill. We skied for as long as we could but gave up in the early afternoon with a sense of disappointment.

The following day the winds dropped and the slopes seemed quieter. We finally had those lovely snow conditions we’d been anticipating, including some ungroomed slopes, which is a bit of a shock for Cervinia. We enjoyed descending through the soft powdery lumps of fluff, occasionally taking a gently cushioned fall as we tested our ability to handle these conditions on steeper slopes. It was a really worthy final day of skiing in the Aosta Valley. Whatever happens to the sosta I know we’ll be back here for skiing, we just cant stay away.