A few pictures from Austria and Bavaria

[NateidOpf]

I thought I would share some pictures of a few ski areas I've visited while living in Germany. I'm in my second winter out here and have been lucky enough to sample a variety of resorts in the region. They range from the small, family-run areas to some of the bigger resorts in Austria and Germany. My goal this season is to ski every weekend I possibly can and to visit as many different areas as possible. I'll keep adding to this page as I make trips.

November 2007 - Stubai, Austria

October 2007 - Klausenlift near Mehlmeisel, Germany. Yep, one t-bar and a couple hundred meters of vert. I was out on a scouting mission this day checking out ski areas in my region. Doubt I'll be going to this one. There are a lot of these little family-operated areas around though.

Same day as above - Fichtelberg at Ochsenkopf. This place has some promise as it has two actual chairlifts, one on each side of the mountain, that meet at the top. I'll be skiing here this coming Sunday.

August 2007 - Grosser Arber Ski area, Germany (near the Czech border). I actually skied here last month and found it fun. It's the biggest area in my region with two six seaters, a gondola and a few other lifts. It's big enough that a woman's world cup race is held here each year. It's still not the Alps or even a Hoodoo in Oregon, but it makes for a good, short day trip. The bldg on the left is the top of the gondola station.

 

[NateidOpf]

March 2007 - Garmisch Classic Ski Area, Germany. I did not like this place. It was way too packed and the lift layout is horrible. At least the snow and scenery were great though! The day before, a friend and I scored waist-deep powder at the Zugspitze area. We found fresh lines all day and had a great time. Of course, I did not have my camera with me that day......

The Alpspitze as seen from the Garmisch slopes

Closeup of some climbers on the Alpspitze (center of pic above)

Prost! to the Alpspitze

March 2007 - Oetz Valley, Austria

HockGurgl - Mountain Top Bar at over 3,000 meters. Italy is just over the ridgeline.

Getting ready to ski one of the only true black diamond runs at Hochgurgl. Most off-piste areas were unskiable due to lack of snow. That lift below took forever!

Hochgurgl - At least it wasn't crowded!

Soelden - The glacial ampitheater. I would love to go back to this resort with more snow. So much promising terrain and it is HUGE! This only show a tiny slice of the terrain. There are many other peaks and valleys to explore.

Another shot of the Ampitheater at Soelden

I'd never seen this at a resort before - a tunnel that connects one valley to another. Soelden, Austria

Soelden - some steep and icy bumps. They did soften up nicely in the afternoon sun, however

That's it for now. I'd better get some work done I'll post some more from home later.

 

[jasoncapecod]

thanks

 

[Admin]

=D>

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I was telling Jason on the lift the other day that while everyone here dreams about moving to Utah or Jackson Hole or wherever, it's no contest for me -- the scale, the number of areas, skiing from village to village, the atmosphere.

Even if it means less frequent powder days... the Alps win.

 

[NateidOpf]

I was telling Jason on the lift the other day that while everyone here dreams about moving to Utah or Jackson Hole or wherever, it's no contest for me -- the scale, the number of areas, skiing from village to village, the atmosphere.

Even if it means less frequent powder days... the Alps win.

Trust me, I've got no complaints about the skiing over here, but there is just something missing compared to some of the better North American resorts. I know that I've only scratched the surface over here and I've got a lot more places to explore, but right now, if I was given the choice to ski The Alps vs. say Whistler or Mt Hood Meadows or Alyeska, I'd choose the resorts in NA at this point. Maybe I just miss hamburgers and french fries for lunch I think there is another thread going on about this topic. Let me do some thinking and I'll comment on it.

I also lived in Japan for 3 years and helped run a ski club over there. You wanna talk powder? WOW! Now, the terrain wasn't that great, but I bet we skied fresh pow 75% of the time. A couple of the resorts such as Hakkoda and Hachimanti Forest, where the strict Japanese rules didn't apply, were unbelievable. Do a search on Hakkoda and tell me what you think

Back to Europe. I just got back from skiing a place 10 miles from where I live for the first time. The 'snow' was bullet proof, but I still had fun. I actually got a pretty good workout in doing laps at this single run local area. I think I'll keep going back as it's easy to do after work and it will keep my legs in shape. Why not?

 

[Patrick]

=D> =D> =D> =D> BEautiful once again Nate.

I was telling Jason on the lift the other day that while everyone here dreams about moving to Utah or Jackson Hole or wherever, it's no contest for me -- the scale, the number of areas, skiing from village to village, the atmosphere.

Even if it means less frequent powder days... the Alps win.

Again, I've made this comment to Tony and on this board more than once. Alps is a totally different animal.

Alps are great (cannot compare to elsewhere, except the Andes maybe).

West is great. Totally different. Vibes, atmosphere, more up and down feeling than the Alps less the notion of touring.

East is great. Again Apples and Oranges. Each have a great quality the other doesn't.

Trust me, I've got no complaints about the skiing over here, but there is just something missing compared to some of the better North American resorts. I know that I've only scratched the surface over here and I've got a lot more places to explore, but right now, if I was given the choice to ski The Alps vs. say Whistler or Mt Hood Meadows or Alyeska, I'd choose the resorts in NA at this point. Maybe I just miss hamburgers and french fries for lunch I think there is another thread going on about this topic. Let me do some thinking and I'll comment on it.

Although my personal experience is very limited as I have skied almost exclusively in the French Alps, Val d'Isère/Tignes is probably my favorite Alps feel. It has it all. Chosing one place to live based on skiing in Europe, it would definitely be Bourg St-Maurice in the Tarantaise Valley (Trois vallées (Val Thorens, Les Menuires, Meribel, Courchevel), La Plagne, Les Arcs and Val d'Isère/Tignes...and those are only the major ones).

 

[NateidOpf]

Each have a great quality the other doesn't.

Exactly Patrick! I often get asked where my favorite place to ski is since I've lived in a variety of places. It's a very tough question for me to answer as I have great memories from every single place I have ever skied. That's the great thing about skiing for me - there is NEVER a bad day Sure, there are certain things that I like more at once place over another or things that may grate on me slightly, but overall the experiences are always positive.

Okay, back to more pictures from my forays in the Austrian Alps last season.

February 2007 - Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria

The weather was incredible the 3 days we were there. I really liked this area a lot as it had a variety of terrain and was quite large. This is a resort where you could play the 'chase the sun' game all day long as there were slopes lining both sides and the head of the valley. Unfortunately, there just wasn't that much snow so off-piste opportunities were very limited. Also, my favorite on-mountain restaurant in Austria is located here.

Our hotel was supposedly ski in/ski out. The slope in the foreground was the access to the lift below. It made it kind of exciting first thing in the morning!

My buddy Seth catching some air off of a cat track

 

[NateidOpf]

January 2007 - Alpendorf/Wagrain/Flachau in the Ski Amade region south of Salzburg

Lots of man-made snow

Nice view from the slopes (I was getting used to my new camera so colors are a bit off)

December 2006 - Ski Amade Region, Austria

November 2006 - Stubai, Austria

Glacier skiing at its finest

A small 'earn your turns' area with a little bit of powder and lots of crevasses.

The national sport of Austria is skiing and they take it seriously. This glacier had numerous race courses set up on it as did the lower glacier.

I studied glacial geomorphology in college so I tend to take a lot of pictures of them. This cirque glacier was just over the ridge from the ski area.

 

[NateidOpf]

November 2006 - Kitzsteinhorn, Austria

This is a good place for early-season skiing due to its high elevation (over 10,000 ft) and the fact that it has a couple of glaciers to ski on.

As seen from Kaprun

This place had kind of a convoluted lift system. Once at mid-mountain, you would take the tram up to near the top. To get to the peak and one of the only true blacks open so early (had to duck a fence too), you then had to climb down some stairs and then board a gondola car looking thing that sat on rails (next pic). After that, you had to climb 3 more flights of stairs. It was worth it though.

Rail-gonda-tram thingy in upper right hand of pic

Most definitely early season conditions. Unfortunately, most of the season was like this

 

[NateidOpf]

Well, that's it for Austria/Germany for now. Again, I'll post more as I make trips. I have many, many more pictures from over here but hopefully this small sample gives everyone a taste of the skiing and terrain over here. One thing I need to concentrate on more this year is getting action shots and more shots of the slopes themselves. I get so overwhelmed by the scenery that my camera is naturally drawn towards the amazing peaks and vistas.

One last pic - my dog Osu (taken in Alaska, actually)

Cheers!

 

[Admin]

Great stuff, Nate -- you've earned your keep around here!

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Hey, I can post Alps pix too... from Lech:

 

[Admin]

Hey, I can post Alps pix too... from Lech:

Gotta love how many Euros stick to the groomed piste. I wish Utahans did the same. :lol:

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Gotta love how many Euros stick to the groomed piste. I wish Utahans did the same. :lol:

That's a big difference between St. Anton and Lech/Zurs... St. Anton has all the hotshots and the LCC-esque first tracks insanity. Go 15 yards or more off-piste in Lech and you're hearing crickets.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I've only had one trip over there, but the pics do reinforce my impression that the Alps generally rule for mountain scenery.

And scale matters too, as last weekend at Whistler reminded me.

 

[mikesathome]

Amazing pictures, great information NateidOpf.
Thanks a lot for posting them!

 

[NateidOpf]

Nice pics James! I'm going to have to check this Lechs place out. That snow looked nice!

Thanks Mike and you're welcome!

I just got back from a trip to Bad Gastein in Austria. I'm still working on those pictures as I took a lot of them. In the meantime, here's another local area that I tested out two weekends ago.

Ochesenkopf am Fichtelgebirge, Northern Bavaria, Germany. This is the place that has only two lifts, and with cruddy snow conditions, only two runs. They are decently long for a small area at right around 2km a piece, but are quite boring. The north side has snow making and the resulting bullet-proof snow while the south side has no man-made snow. I actually preferred the south side as the snow was much softer even though coverage was lacking. I had this place to myself from 9am to 10:30am, and then church let out and the place got absolutely swarmed. I will never go here again on a Sunday!

Sunrise looking down the south side

The chairline going up the south side. As you can see, not much snow

A newly constructed ski jump on the north side. The north side actually had a lot of amenities such as this competition jump, a snowboard park, a couple of restaurants, and a very large learners area. It also had way too many damn people!

The communications tower on top of Ochsenkopf. It doesn't have anything to do with skiing, but it is the most prominent feature on the mountain. Plus, I kind of like the picture.

I should have some of the pics from Bad Gastein up this weekend since I won't be doing any skiing. I tweaked my knee pretty bad on the last day of the trip and I feel like I may have torn my meniscus....again. We'll see once the swelling goes down. Hopefully it's just a sprain.

Good skiing to you all!

 

[Admin]

Good luck with that knee! Ice as much as possible the first 24h, heat thereafter.

 

[NateidOpf]

Thanks Admin. It's slowly getting better but still feels a bit weird if I take a wrong step. I'm going back to the doc later this week to have it re-looked at. I don't think it's anything bad. I hope not - I have a ski trip planned this coming weekend

Okay, a few pictures from Bad Gastein, Austria. It's basically comprised of 5 seperate areas, 3 of which I skied in a 3 day period. I'd read some good reviews of the region online and had my hopes up for some really good terrain and fun off-piste adventures. It turned out to be okay, but a little over-hyped. With really good snow, I could see some great potential, but with so-so snow nothing really stood out. I had expected some great conditions based on online snow reports but found out they were mostly bunk when I arrived in Bad Gastein. The Austrian resorts are really over-reporting this season, probalby in an attempt to get more visitors in to make up for last season. 30cm in the valley?? Try 0-1 cm's. 140cm at mid-mountain? Try about 30cm. 240cm on top? Yeah, right! Anyway, I still had a great time and for once, the weather was finally really nice if not a bit too warm.

On our first day, we did get some day-old powder which surprisingly wasn't tracked out. This area was pretty fun and we skied a lot of untracked areas for about 3 hours. Lots of fun stuff around here to. Nothing too difficult, just fun and nobody else really on it.

I wanted to check out this area across the valley - Graukogel - but it barely had any runs open. I had read there was some great tree skiing there. Perhaps next time

Sportgastein - the highest area in the region. This area could be fun if the snow was better. On this day, off-piste was very, very crusty and hard to negotiate with carving skis on. The groomers were very long and definitely leg burners. This area is just above the mid-station of the gondola. In the afternoon, things did soften up, and after a couple of lunch beers, we had a really good time.

Another plus - hardly any people on the runs.

A buddy of mine was skiing on some fatty twin tips and didn't have much of a problem with the crust. I stupidly followed him off-piste under the mid station gondola down to the bottom. The run was fantastic the first couple of times although I did struggle at times with the crust. It was the last run where I tweaked my knee - exhaustion + wrong equipment + laziness = bad juju.

Not a bad view from the hotel balcony. The town of Bad Gastein was behind me. Notice the lack of snow on the sunny side of the valley.

Overall, a great trip and we had a lot of fun. There were busloads of crazy Norweigans on holiday also which made the Apres Ski scene a lot of fun. We even went and watched a Danish heavy metal band at one of the local bars - great show