Easter 2008

Easter was so much better than we thought it would be, loads of new snow meant fantastic off Piste. We skied with Alois again, we just couldn't resist with the great snow conditions. We got some great Photos on Friday, the snow was so fluffy, great plumes of snow going in all directions. Saturday we needed to pick the slopes carefully as  the south facing slopes had become heavy in the sun. Sunday was so funny,  there such a thing as too much snow, we skied the Schindler Hang twice and there was 1m of new snow on it. You just had to point your skis down the hill to even keep moving.  There were loads of wipe-outs but that is part of the fun. 

We are planning to go back for the Griabli open air in the beginning of April, which will then bring our skiing days total for this winter to 60.

You can find our pictures at:  http://www.duncanguy.dyndns.org/StAnton0805/index.htm

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March 2008

A stormy weekend at home so start the month, it is very wet and blow out so that makes it a good weekend for catching up at home before heading of to St. Anton at the end of the week. The good news is they are forecasting a week of snow falls so we may have some fresh powder to ski in March, if the temperatures are low enough. The weather really is unpredictable with warm weather in January and February and hopefully a good dump of snow in March. The week in St Anton was certainly a mix of all weather conditions, from rain to snow to beautiful cloudless sunny days.  The snow did greatly improved condition, this also meant a lot less hiking too. We were disappointed to hear that Harold had hurt his leg, he was able to ski, but not with Alois. This meant that Peter had a ski partner for most of the week.   He has not the only one to collect injuries, Mike was unable to ski for 3 days with and injured back, Duncan hurt his shoulder in a wipe-out and Michelle collected a black eye after she and Duncan collided on an almost empty off Piste run. We had one particularly fantastic day skiing the old back of Rendl. We managed a couple of really nice carpets of ski tracks. Ron and Susanne were back, these guys are unstoppable, the y ski both before and after ski school and never seem to get tired. Ueli was also back but left early because it started to rain. The Rain didn't stop us from skiing and the mood in the group was cheerful almost amused at the variability in the weather. Jürg had us in  fits of laughter with a mean Pink Floyd Ski guitar solo. We met up with a nice Kiwi couple Graham and Julie who skied a couple of days with us, and another Kiwi couple Grant and Joya who we skied with before but were in a different group this year. We are back home for a very short 4 day work break before returning for Easter, hopefully our legs and shoulders and eyes recover by then. 

Pictures at  http://www.duncanguy.dyndns.org/StAnton0804/index.htm

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February 2008

The winter is really flying past quickly, we could really do with some more snow. Other than the big snowfall in December, there has been just a few days of light snow. It is like skiing at the end of the season with "firn" snow and some very warm days. Week 8 saw us back in St. Anton again skiing with some familiar faces. Anything within 1 hour of the pistes is completely skied to death so it meant lots of walking and even touring. Duncan did a tour were they walked up for 2.5 hours before skiing down the other side. It is a side of Rendl we have never skied before.  Michelle decided it was too far for her so she had a nice day on Piste with Peter (Canadian), Harold (South African)  and Harold's son Michael. Duncan had a lot of problems with his Bindings so the next day we spent testing the touring skis after they had been repaired. The fact is that the skis are just too soft for him, so we are looking for new skis for him. We joked for most of the week that the Tyrolean dialect has no word for clouds, the weather was perfect. On the Thursday we had one day of fog and snow we tried to get above it but couldn't so we skied near the forest. It little bit of snow we got really improved conditions of piste. We had a lovely dinner with John and Steffi, Harold and Peter and Johny at the Fahner, the food here is special but the service was run off its feet so was inattentive. It was Johny's last week for the season so we skied on the Saturday together, it was starting to get really warm so we needed to stop for a beer in St. Christoph on a sunny terrace.  The Temperatures on the last day were really crazy we had 14C at 1850m and 8C in the village, this made the snow very heavy so we decided to call it a day at lunchtime, it is not worth getting injured. It was a great but tiring week so we were glad to catch the earlier train home.  Work is really crazy in Winter, with being away every 3rd week things pile up.

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January 2008

Week 2 saw us back in St. Anton, this time we skied with Alois for 6 days. On the Monday it rained so the snow became crusty and stayed that way for the week on the lower slopes, no one was really motivated after a soaking in the morning and an extended lunch break to dry off, but the afternoon saw us doing exercises on ski routes and on piste which actually turned out to be great experience for later in the week. To find the good and untracked snow we had to climb. After a evening of dancing in the Piccadilly we climbed the Maroikopf. It took a bit over an hour with skis being carried on the shoulder. The snow was like sugar making the climb even harder.  It was definitely worth it though, we had some fantastic untracked powder and amazing scenery of mountains valleys and frozen waterfalls down through the Maroi valley. We laughed about this being our punishment for having too much energy left over to dance the previous day.  Duncan even got to push Michelle off a cliff.  There was no way she was going to jump on her own. We bought ourselves new rucksacks the following day so we can attach the skis to them to make the climbing easier. Little did we know when we said "we would collect them in the evening", that Alois had the same climb in mind. The climb the second time was better as the steps in the snow were compacter. This time we skied down the other side to Langen. Before we skied off we watched an amazing film shoot of some very extreme skiing. These guys jumped off a 5m drop and then skied a couple of turns before doing a back flip of another rocky cliff.  Very impressive but very scary too.  The day we left the snow came by lunch time there was a good 3 cm of new snow and it seemed to be snowing harder, it was difficult to leave.  The Sunday was Simon's christening, Michelle is now a Godmother, the church where it was held was celebrating mass for the Gospel choir. It is the only time we have seen a 5 piece band in a church including drums and electric guitars . The music was fantastic and the atmosphere really relaxed, dancing and applauding allowed. Then it was a great lunch, afternoon walk and an evening meal.  Duncan didn't even complain about having to visit two churches in one day - although he did whinge a bit about the kids! Then we had our first whole weekend at home since November, that was relaxing. The last week in January saw us.....you guessed it back in St. Anton.  We didn't arrive until late because Michelle missed her train connection. This week is a classic for meeting up with long lost friends, well those who we haven't seen since this time last year. (Johny, Per, Jenny and Peter etc.) We are back skiing with Alois with some fantastic sunny weather.  We even got to ski some firn snow which we don't normally get until spring. Just to keep us on our toes it did snow about 20 to 30 cm of the fresh stuff. The next day saw us skiing like crazy with 2 runs to Langen and a trip down the Maroi valley, about 1.5x the amount we normally ski, it left us really tired. The last day was so great we decided to catch the late train home.

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