trip report: part 3

Once again, we dip into Rudi’s memory to bring you more Euro memories.

Day Three: February 17

My primary motivation for taking my holiday in Austria – other than getting mom to venture back to her homeland – was to ski. A lot.

Now if you’ve followed any coverage of the winter of 2006-2007, you may have heard that’s it’s been warm in Europe this winter. Myriad World Cup ski races have been moved or canceled due to lack of snow. Compared to the record snows of 2005-2006, this year is the opposite.

No matter, though: I was in the Alps to ski, and skiing is something I certainly did (as well as snap some photos and capture some funny video).

So the morning after my marathon trip, I met up with Reini Schaller to take in the Ski Amadé (a play on “Amadeus”) pistes. It was a funny pairing: me on 165cm Dynastar carving skis (the shortest skis I’d used since I was 11 years old), and Reini on his backcountry touring gear. For him, it was his first time using a ski lift in over 10 years.

Not that it really made any difference, because it was absolutely super to have a local to guide me from town to town. So we boarded the new 6-pack chairlift at the base of St. Johann-Alpendorf to begin our quest.

Our objective was to make it to Flachau – home of Hermann Maier, the “Hermannator” – and back. We also wanted to ski on the higher pistes, where the natural snow was deep enough for some good skiing. And by skiing the upper pistes, we could ski from St. Johann to the neighboring towns of Wagrain and Flachau.

We made our way up the Gernkogel (where there’s a webcam), over to the Sonnenkogel on the Wagrain side of the mountain. As the freezing line was quite high, the snow was firm, yet soft – perfect corn snow, spring skiing conditions. I had to get the hang of my short skis, which weren’t the racing skis I was used to. They were a bit squirrely at speed, but were quite decent once I found the balance point. Fortunately, the slopes weren’t overly crowded, so there was some room to experiment with turn shapes and speed. I also took a slew of shots to make a panoramic shot from the top of the St. Johann-Alpendorf side of things.

After riding three different kinds of lifts – chairs, a gondola, and a T-bar – we made it to the bottom of Wagrain, where we hopped a short bus to the other side of Wagrain. The buses between venues are free, fast and clean, and the drivers can be very amusing.

Ten minutes later, we were at the base of “The Flying Mozart,” the gondola that ascends the Flachau side of Wagrain. The bright green cars ascended through thick pine forest to a clearing that had plentiful snow and some nice, rolling terrain. Reini and I pressed on, over the ridge and down into Flachau. The slopes of Flachau, proper, aren’t overly steep and have an unfortunate exposure that meant a lot of deep, heavy slush. It was a workout to ski such slop on short skis, but we made it down unscathed.

Having seen the village where Maier grew up, we quickly headed back up to the upper reaches of Flachau, where the snow and pistes were really great (click here for a panoramic view). After a few runs at the top, we noted the time and began the trek back to St. Johann.

After a long run down to Wagrain, a short bus ride to the other side of town, and a swift gondola ride, we were up in the high peaks once more. At this point, Reini and I were ready for a mid-afternoon drink, and stopped at a Hutte on the mountain, Zauchenstation Hachaualm.

Remember: this trip took place during fasching, so there were likely to be a few party-bound folks on the slopes. And this Hutte didn’t disappoint! These folks were serious drinkers, and polished off a 2.5 liter bottle of schnapps in less than an hour – and with the help of others at the Hutte, including Reini and me. Aside from our beer and Radler (and some complementary schnapps from the owner of the inn), we each had a shot from the fasching bottle.

The remainder of our skiing day was less painful – we were far from drunk, and the schnapps took a little edge off the leg burn from skiing the lower-elevation slush. After having our best runs of the day on the Sonenkogel at Wagrain, we made our way back down to St. Johann. Our pace was increased by the fact that the “prisoners” from the Hutte were also making their way down in a very drunken state – we wanted to be well clear of them on our way down the hill.

After another splendid dinner at the Schaller house, some TV (ski racing coverage on ORF2 – yes!), it was time for a good night’s sleep. After all, new slopes were on the menu for the 18th!