1984 Civetta Descent

I found this random video of a 1984 ski descent by Toni Velaruz (at the time, a 43 year old ski instructor at Val di Fassa) of the North East Wall of Civetta, a huge peak in the Italian Dolomites. The line is over 1000m long and averages 60 degrees. Though he had heli-assistance, the descent didn’t come easy as strong winds made the summit heli-drop challenging. He also lost one of his ski poles partway down, but the heli was able to gave him another.

I think this is cool because it shows us a few things. One, that dudes were skiing big peaks and lines long before the advent of rockered tip, carbon fiber skis, Whippets and RedBull. Also, it proves that one can use a helicopter to assist in obtaining an objective and still get mad respect. (Its gotta blow getting blasted with rotor wash when the heli gets too close though (1:08).) It also shows that people were making ski vids to share the stoke long before the creation of POV cams, blogs and HD media. Looks intense…that’s for sure.

Civetta, “The Owl”.