Guides · Cortina d'Ampezzo
5 Best Ski Slopes in Cortina d'Ampezzo
By Tomas Achmedovas · CEO and co-founder
CEO and co-founder
The best ski slopes in Cortina d'Ampezzo sit in four separate sectors that do not all join up on skis, which is the first thing to work out before you buy a lift pass. This guide covers five of them, ordered so the descent with the strongest reason to ski it this season comes first: the Olympia delle Tofane, which staged the women's alpine events at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in February and went back to being an ordinary red piste in spring 2026.
Each entry names the lift that gets you up there, the length and vertical of the signature runs, the access point address and what the operator does and does not publish. Where a figure is disputed or simply missing - Faloria's piste kilometres, the 2026/27 pass prices, the exact reopening date of the Olympic downhill - this guide says so instead of picking a number that looks tidy.
A workable four-day order: Tofana first while your legs are fresh, Faloria on a short day because the cable car leaves from the middle of town, a full day pairing Cinque Torri with the Lagazuoi and the Armentarola run, then the Great War Ski Tour or the Sellaronda when the weather is settled. Lifts in the Cortina area generally run 08:30 to 16:30. Aggregator data puts the resort at about 120 km of piste between 1,217 m and 2,828 m, split 45 km easy, 59 km intermediate and 16 km difficult across 25 lifts, though Cortina itself does not publish those totals. Skiers weighing the Dolomites against the Swiss Alps usually have Grindelwald on the same shortlist, and the honest difference is that the terrain here is broader and lower while the scenery is the more dramatic of the two. The Sellaronda needs a settled day from first lift to last, so check Cortina d'Ampezzo weather before you commit to it rather than starting and turning back. The hotels in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the centre put the Faloria cable car within walking distance, which matters on the short days.
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1Tofana and the Freccia nel Cielo - Skiing the Olympia delle Tofane
The Olympia delle Tofane is the reason to start here. It drops from 2,320 m to 1,560 m, 760 m of vertical over 2.26 km, with a maximum gradient of 33 degrees and the Tofana Schuss wall touching 64%. Along the way it throws in the Duca d'Aosta jump, the Gran Curvone and the Scarpadon. This is the home course for the women's World Cup downhill and super-G, where Lindsey Vonn took 12 of her World Cup wins, and it staged all the women's alpine and Para alpine events at Milano-Cortina 2026. Cortina reopened the Tofane sector to recreational skiers after the Paralympics in spring 2026 and extended that season, so the Olympic downhill is now simply a red piste you ski on a normal lift pass. The race pistes are served by the Duca d'Aosta and Pomedes chairlifts on the Pomedes side, not by the cable car itself.
The Freccia nel Cielo cable car climbs in three stages from the Cortina valley station at 1,224 m to Col Druscie at 1,778 m, on to Ra Valles at 2,470 m and finally to Tofana di Mezzo at 3,244 m, a total rise of about 2,020 m. The Freccia nel Cielo operator counts 47 km of slopes and 13 runs on this side of the resort. Beyond the Olympia, Forcella Rossa runs 2 km with 700 m of vertical and a 72% maximum, Vertigine Bianca is left ungroomed, Canalone and Labirinti give you steeper alternatives at altitude, Col Druscie A is the 1956 Olympic slalom slope that was used again at the 2021 World Championships, and Stries is the only run that brings you all the way back down into town.
In August 2026 the operator was still showing the 2025/26 calendar, 5 December 2025 to 12 April 2026, and had not published 2026/27 dates; the usual window is early December to mid-April. A new 10-seat gondola at Socrepes was announced in May 2026. One thing you cannot do here: the rebuilt Cortina Sliding Centre 'Eugenio Monti' remains fenced off after the Games and no date for public access has been announced.
2Lagazuoi and the Armentarola Run - The Hidden Valley Descent
The Lagazuoi cable car lifts you from Passo Falzarego at 2,107 m to 2,732 m in three minutes, a rise of 625 m on an unusual fixed-rope design with no support pylons under the cable. About 12 km of runs drop off the top in two descents. The short one, the Lagazuoi, is a 3.5 km red with 600 m of vertical. The long one is the Armentarola, quoted at 8.5 km by most sources and 7.5 km by some, running beneath the Fanes walls past frozen waterfalls and finishing at Sass Dlacia in Alta Badia rather than anywhere near Cortina.
The Armentarola ends with the strangest lift in the Dolomites. At the run-out at Sass Dlacia the piste goes dead flat, and a team of horses tows skiers roughly 1.5 km along the level ground to the Armentarola lift and Capanna Alpina. There is a small cash fee, commonly quoted at around EUR 5, but no operator publishes a confirmed 2026/27 price, so carry coins and ask at the run-out rather than trusting a number you read online. From there the lifts feed straight into the Super8 Ski Tour and the Great War Ski Tour, and the whole sector is covered by the Dolomiti Superski pass.
Two things to plan around. The Armentarola leaves you in a different valley, so you either work back over the passes on lifts or take the ski bus home, which turns a 20-minute descent into an afternoon. And the 2026/27 season dates for the Lagazuoi lifts had not been published as of August 2026, so confirm they are running before you commit a whole day and a drive up the SR48 to them.
3Cinque Torri - Wide Reds Over First World War Trenches
Cinque Torri is the friendliest of Cortina's sectors and the one with the most history buried under the snow. The operator counts 16 slopes served by 7 lifts: the 5 Torri chairlift from the Bai de Dones base up to Rifugio Scoiattoli at 2,255 m, then the A.A. 5 Torri, the Averau lift towards Rifugio Averau at 2,413 m, Croda Negra, and the Fedare and Forcella Nuvolau lifts. The showpiece is the Lino Lacedelli, 1,500 m long and homologated for competition, with Scoiattoli, Potor, Averau, Fedare, Croda Negra and Nuvolau filling out the rest. Total piste kilometres and exact base and top altitudes are not published by the operator, so treat any round number you find elsewhere with suspicion.
The sector doubles as the Cinque Torri open-air Great War museum, a set of restored First World War trenches and tunnels dug into the ground below the five towers, which you ski past rather than visit. It is also home to the Super8 Ski Tour, a figure-of-eight round 5 Torri and Lagazuoi: 16 km of piste plus 8 km of bus and taxibus to close the loop, blue and red the whole way, about three hours if you keep moving.
Getting here from Cortina asks you to choose. The Cortina Skyline gondola from Son dei Prade has connected the Tofana side to 5 Torri on skis since winter 2022, which is the elegant option and keeps you on the snow all day. The blunt one is the 20-minute drive west on the SR48 to the Bai de Dones car park, which is what most people do on a short day or when the wind shuts the high lifts.
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4Faloria - The Cable Car That Leaves From the Middle of Town
The Funivia Faloria has been running since 1939 and still starts a few minutes on foot from Corso Italia, which no other cable car in the Dolomites can claim. It covers 2,519 m of cable and 897 m of rise from Cortina at 1,225 m to Monte Faloria at 2,123 m, carrying 600 people an hour. The second way into the sector is the Cristallo four-seat chairlift from Rio Gere at 1,688 m to Son Forca at 2,220 m, with Cima Cristallo standing over it at 3,221 m. Vertical on the Faloria side comes to about 900 m.
Vitelli is the run people come back for, a long red tracking along under the Cristallo walls. The Tondi di Faloria pistes sit directly beneath the cable car line and catch the morning light. The newer black Scoiattolo is short and mean by comparison: 905 m long, 238 m of vertical, 27% average gradient and 55% at its steepest.
How big is Faloria? Nobody official will say. Bergfex puts it at about 20 km of groomed piste, other guides quote about 30 km once Cristallo and Mietres are counted in, and no operator publishes either a piste figure or a lift count for the sector. Winter 2026/27 dates and prices were also unpublished as of August 2026. For scale on single rides, the summer 2026 tariffs were EUR 21 one way and EUR 27 return on the Faloria gondola and EUR 17 or EUR 22 on the Cristallo chairlift; in winter both are covered by the lift pass instead.
5The Great War Ski Tour and the Sellaronda Circuit
The Great War Ski Tour is the better first big circuit out of Cortina, for one practical reason: it starts inside the local ski area at Falzarego and 5 Torri instead of asking you to transfer into another valley before the clock starts. Clockwise it runs 78 to 100 km in 6.5 to 7.5 hours; counter-clockwise, 84.5 to 99 km in 7 to 8 hours. Of that total, 25 to 43 km is actual skiing, 17 to 26 km is riding lifts, 28 to 36 km is ski bus, and 1.5 km is the horse-drawn tow at Sass Dlacia, which only features on the counter-clockwise version. The route crosses Lagazuoi, 5 Torri, Arabba, Marmolada and Civetta, tops out on Lagazuoi at 2,732 m, and needs a Dolomiti Superski pass.
If the classic circuit is what you came for, the Sellaronda covers 44 km in total, 23 km of it on skis and 21 km riding lifts, around the four passes of Campolongo, Pordoi, Sella and Gardena, linking Val Gardena, Alta Badia, Arabba-Fodom and Val di Fassa in about six hours. Orange waymarks mean clockwise, green means counter-clockwise, and counter-clockwise is the usual recommendation. The honest catch from Cortina is that you do not start on the ring: you have to ski the Armentarola down into Alta Badia and work through La Villa or Corvara first, or drive 20 minutes to Bai de Dones and take the Cortina Skyline gondola and the 5 Torri chairlift. The Cortina tourist board quotes 42.1 km and 6 to 7 hours for the Cortina version of the day.
Whichever ring you pick, set off before 10:00 and be through the last pass by 15:30, because one missed lift closure turns into a taxi over a mountain road at your own expense. Both tours need the Dolomiti Superski pass, which covers over 1,200 km of slopes across 12 ski areas with Cortina among them. The mountains you spend the day crossing are a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a full circuit day is the clearest way to understand why.
Pricing is the one thing this guide cannot give you cleanly. Neither Dolomiti Superski nor Cortina Skipass had published 2026/27 rates as of August 2026, and new tariffs usually land in September or October. As a reference point only, last season, 2025/26, an adult Dolomiti Superski day pass ran EUR 77 in low season to EUR 86 in high season, with funivie.it listing a day at EUR 76, six days at EUR 357 and a season at EUR 870. The local Cortina Skipass sold a EUR 550 pre-Olympic season pass, a 10-day flexible adult pass at EUR 520 and an under-8 child season pass at EUR 275, with one free child pass per paying adult. Season dates are unconfirmed too, so plan on the usual late November to mid-April window, with some areas running into early May.
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CEO and co-founder
Tomas is the co-founder and director of trip1, an European company specializing in reservation services. He launched the company in 2025 with a focus on building scalable, efficient operations.
5 Best Ski Slopes in Cortina d'Ampezzo - Tofana, Lagazuoi & Sellaronda - FAQ
Yes, especially for confident intermediates. Its sectors cover about 120 km of piste between 1,217 m and 2,828 m, with the Olympia delle Tofane, the 1,500 m Lino Lacedelli at Cinque Torri and the long Armentarola run from the Lagazuoi. The catch is that the sectors do not all join up on skis, so plan each day around one area.
It is not cheap. For 2026/27, an adult Dolomiti Superski day pass costs 89 euros in high season and a six-day pass 453 euros. The local Cortina Skipass covers the home sectors if you are not doing the big circuits, and a half-day pass on Faloria, which leaves from the middle of town, suits arrival and departure days.
The Dolomites, a range of the eastern Alps in north-east Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Cortina sits in the Ampezzo valley surrounded by Tofana, Cristallo and Faloria, and its lifts link into the Dolomiti Superski area, which covers over 1,200 km of slopes across 12 ski areas, including the Sellaronda and the Great War Ski Tour.
Venice Marco Polo is the usual airport. Cortina Express and ATVO buses leave from outside arrivals and take about 2 hours 10 minutes to the bus terminal on Via Marconi in Cortina, a few minutes' walk from the Faloria cable car. A car or private transfer takes about the same time, but you will not need a car for most ski days.
For local skiing the Cortina Skipass is enough; for the circuits it is not. The Cortina Skipass valley pass covers Cortina, San Vito di Cadore, Auronzo and Misurina. The Sellaronda and the Great War Ski Tour cross into other valleys and need the Dolomiti Superski pass, valid across 12 ski areas and over 1,200 km of slopes.
Yes. Cortina reopened the Tofane sector to recreational skiers after the Paralympics in spring 2026, and the Olympia delle Tofane is again a normal red piste on a standard lift pass. It drops 760 m over 2.26 km and is served by the Duca d'Aosta and Pomedes chairlifts, not the Freccia nel Cielo cable car. Ski it before 10:00.
