Nicki and I's trip to Europe came across pretty randomly. I think we were talking one day in late October or early November, and she remarked in an off-hand way that she still wanted to go skiing in Europe. I thought about it a quick second, a realized that with the cheap Euro and airmiles, now was actually a good time to go. We did some research on and off for the next month or so, and debated where to go and finally settled on skiing somewhere in Austria, with visits in Vienna and Munich to bookend our trip (more on the Vienna and Munich portions of the trip in another post).
Given that we were coming fairly early in the year, we selected the Zillertal valley as our place to visit since it boasted a 365 day ski guarantee. No matter how bad our luck might be with early season snow, we'd still be able to ski. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, as our train moseyed into town, we realized that we would be skiing in one of the only places that had snow in Austria. It was a remarkably warm and snow free in Austria, pretty similar to the one we had faced the year before in the PNW.
New Years! We also realized as we got into town on January 31st, that the hotel we booked solely because it was the only reasonably priced place left was also in an amazing location. A few kilometers up the ridge on one side of the valley, we had a view of the entire valley on a large wooden deck off the back of the restaurant. Later that night, everyone from the hotel was celebrating the New Year and watching fireworks go off randomly in different places around the valley - it wasn't quite midnight yet, but there will still the errant firework here and there, and kids shooting off roman candles. When midnight hit however, we were able to see fireworks everywhere. Guesthouses from across the valley shot of their own personal stash, some of which kept going for a good 30 minutes. We decided the trip was worth it based on this alone. The photo on the right (courtesy of www.saalbach.com) does a pretty good job of conveying how impressive it was.
Day 1: After a great first night in the Zillertal Valley, day 1 of skiing begn, though definitely not with an alpine start. We learned a few things that day...
1) That there really was very little snow (take a look at the picture above and you can see that skiing the first day on one of the lower mountains was all fake snow.
2) We are not all that great at skiing on hard fake snow...
3) Despite not being great, we still seemed to be flying past the proper English tourists, who while skiing with good form, made their way down the hill at a snails pace with eratic departures from their turns causing a couple surprises.
4) The valley was absolutely beautiful, with craggy peaks and rolling farmlands around. In a better snow year, it looked like a ski-tourers paradise (hopefully something we can explore in the future).
5) Food and drink are taken to a new level for ski resorts. Nicki and I couldn't get enough of the radler and the pilsner respectively from the local brewery, Zillertal Bier, established in 1500.
Day 2 found us leaving the lower levels of the valley to seek out real snow on the glacier. We headed up early and found better conditions and more views. We still looked like the outcasts with longer and fatter skis than the majority of people, but it was a very enjoyable day skiing on real snow.
The other notable experience was lunch where we played the game of purchasing food not knowing the language or the food. I believe we ended up with a venison stew over rice along with a dish of pasta - of course with our standard order of a half liter of pilsener and radler. This was also the day that Nicki discovered that she had not in fact developed a stronger alcohol tolerance, but was in fact just enjoying a 2% ABV beverage. I'll admit, I ordered it once or twice and enjoyed it as well...
Day 3: After finishing the second day, we were thinking about where to head on the third day and were leaning toward checking out one of the other resorts. However, when we saw the snow forecast actually showed some fresh stuff coming down, we made the decision to book it up to the glacier again. We were very happy we made that choice, finally making good use of the fat North American style skis we'd been lugging around Europe. We also discovered a couple other things; first was that some of the better skiers came out of the woodwork. Second was that besides the locals that showed up, many of the tourists did not seem to know how to ski powder... looking at the following pictures you can see that they were a little flumoxed by the enjoyment Nicki and I were getting out of the fresh snow.
We definitely got a taste of what good snow can be like in the alps and are hoping to make it out again (especially now that we know the trip can be relatively inexpensive compared to the exhorbinant fees of Utah or Colorado). If anyone is interested, let us know...
Day 4: Day 4 was a return to groomers on the lower hills as we had a train to catch and didn't want to venture up to the glacier again. We still had a great day enjoying the sites and cranking out runs. Til next time Mayrhofen...
