Reviews

Alex and his penguins

This was a really good week of my two weeks. A good mixture of skiing and valuable instruction from Alex. He managed the mixed abilities of the group members really well using the penguins (don’t ask!) to assist him in doing this. The other participants were good fun and easy to get along with.
The hotel as usual was really good.

Cross country skiing Dobbiaco

A fantastic week of beginners skiing around the Dolomites. We had excellent tuition from Alex, the hotel was very comfortable with the added bonus of pool, saunas and steam rooms at the end of the day. Food was delicious.

Great tour leader

Alex our tour leader was brilliant. He was bright, cheerful, knowledgeable, creative and above all stretched us but looked after our safety too.

Brilliant time in Italy

We had a brilliant week, cross country skiing in Italy. Unfortunately there was not much snow, and it didn’t snow while we were there, but artificial snow had been laid for the tracks so we were still able to ski as planned, just not in as many different places.
The hotel was lovely and the food was really good.
We had good leaders who made every effort to find good tracks to ski, and who helped us all to improve our skills, and the company all week was excellent.

Mr

Great trip, excellent leader well organised

Dobbiaco cross-country skiing

A really well organised week of cross-country skiing with excellent leaders, a great group of people and some fabulous scenery.

Ski ing with Super Woman!

Exodus employ some really great people to lead their trips , but those of us who booked a week in Dobbiaco this February were in for a real treat! For one week only Exodus had managed to get Superwoman….and we were the lucky ones! Karen Messenger is a young Canadian who spends her summers working in a National Park at home and her winters pursuing her ‘Tour de Fun’ competing in XC country long distance races around the world , known by the wonderful name of Loppets ! For the first two days Karen gave us great ski tips in the mornings and lovely skiing routes in the afternoon keeping her true identity secret, until all was revealed at an evening power point…..we were all very inspired and very impressed when she explained that the ‘Fun’ bit her Tour de Fun was that she dressed as Superwoman for her races….in some races everyone was whacky and she completely fitted in…in other more earnest gatherings there was some amazement , but , she said, the outfit worked wonders for her. So our holiday highlight came on the going home day when we we all went to cheer her as she entered the local Winter Olympics stadium , dressed in red and gold coming in as 26th out of 167 international women skiers , including professional teams , from all over the world, completing the 32 k classic style race in under two hours . And then she did it all again the next day this time with be the skating technique and achieving 7th out of the field of 29 other mad women who tackled both days! What an inspiration and what fun! We will be back ! Hopefully seeing Karen again !

Another good week in Dobbiaco

Another good week in Dobbiaco. Worries about snow conditions were unnecessary. Most trails were open, although not all had cut tracks. This is one advantage of a major x-c skiing centre – they were busy making artificial snow to improve the tracks used in the marathon that was run shortly before this week, and the World Cup races that were due in a few weeks. Plenty of scope for a grade 3 group.

Cross-country skiing January 2016

Yet another great week at Dobbiaco. Tracks were all based on artificial snow, but there was enough of the real stuff to top them up and make everything look pretty. The work done to create tracks was most impressive, and there were plenty to keep us occupied all week. As a regular, it’s great to recognised and welcomed back to the Tschurtschenthaler hotel, which fed us as well as ever.

Dobbiaco 21/02/2015 x/c ski

Superb conditions and leadership by Anne, Alex, and Lorraine at what I think is your best southern European x/c ski base.

Exodus is the only UK Company which does properly-led daylong x/c ski – unlike your competitors such as Ramblers, which treat x/c as downhill skiing (which it definitely isn’t!)
It’s a great shame, therefore, that Exodus does not offer more southern European venues for x/c ski, having drastically reduced these following acquisition of Waymark
I hear this complaint again and again from fellow Exodus x/c skiers. And we all fear that exodus will allow this activity to wither on the vine if it is not careful.

X/c ski is superb outdoor activity which should be promoted as the ideal winter fitness activity – it also has some Royal patronage – Pippa Middleton did an x/c ski race last year!

One other thing – you specify that grade 1 and 2 are suitable for people with little or no experience. But you should make it clear that a level of fitness similar to regular hill walking or cycling is necessary. I have seen so many people have a ruined experience of x/c ski simply because they don’t do sufficient regular exercise, and that causes such difficulties for the Leaders, and, indeed, the other suitably fit participants who have to hang back or stop all the time so that these people can catch up!