Take a hat

Off the beaten track - January 2011 By the riverside in the quiet valley Come on - keep moving! One disadvantage of downhill skiing is the need to wear many layers of clothes, clip on heavy boots and to carry heavy skis. Going cross-country skiing you only wear thin clothes and the boots and skis are lightweight. Cross-country does have a plus point after all! The valley stretches out ahead So suitably attired, or unsuitably as is turned out, we headed for a favourite valley the Kotschachtal for a bit of cross-country. We should have known it would be cold, the sun doesn't find its way here until midday at this time of year.. We set off up the valley; the snow was soft and powdery with no prepared tracks. No tracks was a bit of a shocker! TW is freezing! When TW was here before, last year, it was all beautifully prepared. Today, we had to make our own way, forming personal tracks in the virgin snow. This was actually rather enjoyable. Unfortunately we cou...

When you go skiing at Graukogel you feel that you should really be lacing up your leather boots and strapping on a pair of wooden ski’s using cable bindings. It seems as though you are going back in time to a more unpressurised era.  An era that existed before multi-kilometre ski circuses and linked resorts spread across the Alps. Graukogel is a place where you take a couple of leisurely chairlifts lifts to the top of the mountain and then take your choice between steepish blacks, an undulating red or a blue down a forest track. Or you can ski down, and T-bar back up, a wide red slalom training slope. There is no man-made snow, no snow guns spewing their icy shrapnel across the pistes. This is probably to avoid contaminating the special Gastein Water that is sourced from deep down in the mountain. It means the snow cover depends on the weather and you feel you are only having the very lightest touch on the environment. Even the slow chair lift means you have time to study the...

Snow has been falling slowly for the last few days. Its not been a blizzard, there has been no wind. The fields around the village are under a foot of powder. Up the mountain the snow is much deeper. A common sight today has been a group of skiers looking for a lost ski in the deep stuff, an exhausting occupation. The visibility has not been great and, after the piste has been cut up by slower skiers and boarders, its a bit of a lottery as you you feel your way across the humps and grooves.

2011 The Ski Odyssey GDC on the Schlossalm We again have had a youngster over here for a week. At the ripe old age of 59 and three-quarters, it was time to give GDC some more preparation for Retirement day. Just as youngsters get the opportunity to experience and endure the disciplines of the work-place for short periods prior to leaving full-time education its equally important that those nearing the end of their working life get an insight into what is in store for them. Fitness. I cannot see it! Its great to report that following last year’s report GDC has made great strides in building his fitness. His right hand dexterity when operating his PDA has improved markedly, he clearly has worked long and hard at perfecting the necessary finger flicks and dabs. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, with the demands of family and work, he was unable spend as much time in the gym working on the remainder of his body. However one fit hand is indeed remarkable progress and ...

TW leads the way! Barstein Alm A sunny Saturday in January, TW decided to take me on a snowshoe tour. This was my initiation to snowshoeing having purchased a pair back in December. We took the Schlossalmbahn lift up to the middle station at Kitzstein and then turned left down towards the Barstein Alm and a closed ski run towards the village of Bad Hofgastein. It was well before the 'beering hour' so we did not stop at the Barstein but waddled on past in our size 30 shoes. You just clip these monster snowshoes to a normal pair of walking boots and off you go. Going up or down a slope proved to be quite easy, our shoes have massive metal teeth underneath. The trickiest manoeuvre seems to be traversing across a steep slope, as you would when skiing. I abandoned that as I got used to the ‘big feet’. Look I have size 30 feet! Anyway, it was a cracking day, sunny but cold. Once we had left the ski lift behind it was so quiet. Only the crunch-crunch of our foot...

Fear and Falling It doesn't look steep After downhill skiing for about ten days I decided to take a break and try my hand at Langlauf (cross-country skiing). A nice leisurely ski Sunday up the Angertal valley and back was what I envisaged. It had been warm on Saturday but cold overnight so perhaps I should have expected the track to be icy. I had only skied in soft conditions previously but it can’t be too difficult surely? So I headed off, initially in bright sunshine but soon the track was shaded by pine trees. Unsurprisingly the track is predominantly uphill as it meanders up the valley until the halfway point. The uphill was not a problem, it’s much easier than cycling uphill. However a new downhill section by a dam was a bit of an eye-opener. I set off downhill with my ski’s in the prepared tracks and, although I am quite happy down-hilling on the pistes at 60 kph, I quickly realised that this was a whole different game. With no parachute available I decided I had be...

January in Austria Fifteen minutes down the valley by bus is the village of Dorfgastein. The skiing on their mountain is a little easier and there is also a link over to the next valley at Grossarl. On a ‘Dorfgasteiner day’ we typically spend the morning in the sun on the wide pistes in Grossarl and then, after lunch, ski in the trees on the Dorfgastein side. Baaah in the bar Jagerhutte in Grossarl To get to the skiing it’s a comfortable gondola ride up to Fulseck. What a great feeling when you break through the cloud, into the sunshine, and suddenly you are surrounded by stunning views. That’s just what happened when we took our first excursion of the year. As you would expect in Austria there are plenty of huts on the hills to get a relatively inexpensive lunch or to take a coffee break. We took our coffee break in the Jagerhutte. It is a self-service and its ‘claim to fame’ is a window through to the barn area where sheep gently snooze. A good lunch spot is t...

The skiing has been great since we returned on the 4th January after our Christmas break. Across the field to the Schlossalm Ryanair flew us into Klagenfurt in the south of Austria. The airport transfer buses are irregular so we shared a Taxi (16 Euros)to the Railway Station with two young Austrian ladies from Lienz on their way back from the New Year celebrations in London. The train to Bad Hofgastein took a very relaxed two hours. Using the Austrian Railway website it’s possible to reserve tickets and seats in advance. I reserved us a couple of seats in one of the old fashioned compartment carriages with just six seats. Bit of a dry-do because there was no buffet car. A guy with a trolley embarked halfway but by the time he reached us we were half an hour from home and by then I was looking forward to a beer in Hansi’s. This caused TW some consternation as she alleged that I had been whingeing the whole journey about the lack of a beer. To shut me up she claims she was driven t...