Funivia Santa Caterina - Sforzellina

The Santa Caterina-Sforzellina cable car serves one of Valtellina’s most distinguished ski resorts: Santa Caterina Valfurva, a quiet, well-regarded station sitting at the head of the Valfurva valley in the shadow of the Ortler-Cevedale group, whose glaciers form one of the most impressive massifs in the Central Alps. Rising from Santa Caterina at 1,740 metres to the Sforzellina at 2,760 metres, the cable car delivers 1,020 metres of vertical and opens access to skiing with the Ortler glacier as a constant backdrop.

Santa Caterina is a resort with a serious ski racing pedigree: the Valfurva World Cup events have brought some of the world’s top alpine racers to these slopes, and the demanding terrain has produced several Italian champions who trained on these gradients. The resort is less commercialised than neighbouring Bormio, retaining a genuinely local character and a scale that suits families and skiers who prefer a quieter alternative to the larger, more famous stations.

The Ortler-Cevedale massif that dominates the valley above Santa Caterina is one of the great glacial landscapes of the Alps: a high-altitude world of ice, rock and eternal snow that begins where the ski runs end. The Stelvio National Park, within which much of this terrain falls, is one of Italy’s largest and most biodiverse protected areas, rich in chamois, ibex, golden eagle and all the species of the high Alpine ecosystem.

Bormio nearby offers the complementary experience of the famous Stelvio piste and the busy international World Cup race atmosphere, making the two resorts an ideal combination for a multi-day stay in the Valtellina.