Ski instructors' torchlight descent at the Conca dell'Alben

The sources we found describe different torchlight processions, and it is worth telling them apart. The ski instructors' one comes down the slopes of the Conca dell'Alben: Valbrembanaweb announced it for Friday 2 January 2026 at 5.30 pm, in the same article that listed the end-of-year torchlight events in other places of the valley. On 1 January 2024 La Voce delle Valli reported the Pro Loco programme with a «New Year torchlight procession» in the Conca at 4.30 pm, after the prize-giving for the letters to Father Christmas; the article does not say who led it.

The Epiphany torchlight procession is another matter: it crosses the village and ends with a bonfire. On 6 January 2023 it set off at 8.30 pm, on 6 January 2024 at 6.30 pm, arriving in the market square. In winter 2024-25 we found no torchlight event at the Conca in the local press listings, and for the 2026-27 season, as of 1 October 2026, no programme has been published yet.

The village school is the Scuola Sci Oltre il Colle, which states on its website that it was founded in 1981 by the valley's alpine and cross-country ski instructors; La Voce delle Valli, reporting the regional award, gives 1982 instead. In November 2025 the Lombardy Region listed it among the region's 22 «historic» ski schools, those with at least forty years of uninterrupted activity.

The school's website mentions eleven instructors covering alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, Nordic walking and teaching people with disabilities, all registered with the Lombardy regional board of ski instructors. Downhill is taught on the very slopes of the Conca dell'Alben, cross-country on the trails between the Colle di Zambla and Pian della Palla. In winter 2025-26 the school's calendar included an Epiphany alpine skiing course from 1 to 5 January: the 2 January torchlight descent fell in those days.

The Conca dell'Alben is the basin of meadows below the north face of Monte Alben, about 1.2 kilometres as the crow flies south of the centre of the main village. The downhill slopes are those of the drag lift and the beginners' area conveyor belt, described in the page on the lifts; in winter the cross-country trails coming from the Colle di Zambla also pass through.

By car you drive up from Oltre il Colle along via Drago to the car parks at Pian della Palla, as the pages of this guide explain. From the Colle di Zambla the dirt road towards Pian della Palla becomes a cross-country trail in winter and is closed to traffic. Line B buses reach piazza Tiraboschi and Passo Zambla but do not go up to the Conca, and they do not run on Sundays and public holidays.

According to the 1991-2020 averages of the ERA5 reanalysis given in the main village's page, the average January minimum is about −7 °C and the maximum about 3 °C; in Zambla Alta, a little higher up, −9 and 1 °C. At 5.30 pm in January it is already dark and spectators stand still in the cold: snow boots, gloves and something hot are needed.

The torchlight descent runs on snow-covered slopes and snow is not guaranteed here: in December 2024 the provincial FISI committee postponed, for lack of snow, the cross-country race scheduled at Oltre il Colle on 5 January. As of 1 October 2026 the ski school has not yet published its courses for the 2026-27 season.