Thread: TR: St. Anton 12/30/06-1/7/07 w/ side trip to Ischgl (some picts)

Some may have seen the St. Anton update thread here:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ighlight=anton

We were returning to St. Anton for the 5th time in the last 6 years. The first week in January has been rather good to us in the past having scored thigh deep freshies 3 times there within a 4 year period.

This was 2 years ago:


Mrs. Comish below Schindlergrat

and the TR is here: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ighlight=anton

Knowing there was little snow we decided to hit Ischgl for a day. I had always been curious about the place since it is rather high in elevation and seems to get a fair amount of snow. It was only open on snow making, but skiing really wasn't too bad on-piste with nothing available off-piste. We only got a couple hours there so raced around there very hard packed groomers to get a sense of the place. The terrain is ok, but a fair amount of easily accessible short off-piste pitches, but it doesn't have nearly the amount of terrain that the Arlberg has.

Sunset in Ischgl:


Sunday dawned crystal clear and beautiful in St. Anton. The new Galzigbahn is a huge improvement over the old tram, but wow was there no snow.



Stuben:



Below Schindlergrat and nearly the same spot as Mrs. Comish's pow pict from '05.


Sad in the pants


Holy people batman. All the terrain on either side of this gully is usually very skiable:


Usually the area of some awesome long easily accessible off-piste


You get the picture. Snow not so good.

New Years eve was spent eating pizza at Pomodoro, drinking copious amounts of wine, and then champagne and then gluhwein and then ??? Good times. Met a group of Brits in Pomodoro which I'm sure contributed to our inibriation. (Sometimes I really wish TGR had spell check) Celebrated the New Year on the central street with the forecast of snow to come.

New Years day found it raining in town and in my head. Buckling boots with a solid hangover = not so fun. Hmm, this is at least precipitation though... Mrs. Comish's cousins came from Germany and we enjoyed a foggy, wet, day on very soft-pistes with no people. Actually really fun skiing surprisingly since the rock hard pistes had softened and there was no one on the mtn.

The next day saw the snow line down to town. YEAH!

This was the scene early for the Galzigbahn:




Somehow we managed to get the 1st bin up and had a nearly private car. I was fricken giggly as now we had some solid freshies and it was supposed to snow all day.

You couldn't see sqaut at the top. The only thing open was the Kandahar run which is normally this nightmare, steep, icy, bumpy piste, but once we actually found the dang thing through the clouds it was thick wet heavy pow. Literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Had a good time lapping the 1 run available out of town and retired happy and wet.

Next day seemed like a repeat although this time we could at least see the piste markers. This time the 1st run down Kandahar was fricken sweet. Solid face shots and smoooooth pow. No one down and just rippen fast turns. Great run. They gradually got a few lifts open this day and I insisted on taking Mrs. Comish bushwacking in the search for freshies. She wasn't too ammussed. She has grown accustomed to long fast turn in wide open spaces (Mammoth). This is what the scene looked like.







They opened the T-bar on Galzig at the end of the day around 2:30 so I was still scoring low angled freshied at the end of the day.

Random scenics after the storm:




Well no trip to St. Anton is complete without a trip or two to the Mooserwirt. We spent one night inside while it was still snowing / raining outside and another outside. This place is hilarious. Supposedly the most beer sold in Austria, but irrelevant of that, always a good time. Just check any preconceived notions of what you consider to be good music at the gate, have a few beverages of your choice, we recommend weisen bier inside


or Gluhwein outside:


Inside is a bit crowded, hot, and definitely stinky, but if its snowing outside its one of the best experiences to be partying, dancing, drinking and to know that the next day is going to be epic.



Cute, young Euro chicks.




The waiters there have some solid skills although it did suck to see one woman get drenched by 3 beers as they teetered off the guys tray. They carry these enormous trays through the masses rarely spilling at all.



This one is only like 2/3rds full.


The dancing and general mayham is like nothing we have in the states. Yeah, the Moose is a great apres-bar, Squaw's deck in the spring is a damn good tiem, and Whistler is probably the closest, but nothing rocks as hard as Austrian Apres-ski. They have songs and CD's created specially for it. Its for all ages. Young, old, they all have a few beverages and get down. There is no concept of being too old for a beer or party as I feel like predominates american culture. (ok, slight exageration and generalization, but largely true in my experience)

Mrs. Comish dancing on the bench in Dobermanns with about a 13 year old.



Whole family on the benches.


Then the Brits invaded:
Opps, off to a meeting, this will come later tonight or tomorrow, but here is a teaser of them and the small Avi's we saw:

Originally Posted by comish

Then the Brits invaded.....

Hooray!


Sweet TR. More please.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmnice


yes what he ^^^ said... more please

Captain America: dexterous as fuck.

Nice TR and Euro stoke! Good to see the positive v+i+b+e+s spreading!

More to come manana. Had to leave the office and would rather go for a run while the sun is setting over the ocean than type on the computer.

I love that pic of Mrs. Comish in Schindler from a couple years back.

Originally Posted by comish

Natural?

Captain America: dexterous as fuck.

Gold right there.

The Kanguruh is the best apres in St Anton.

Originally Posted by ptavv

The Kanguruh used to be the best apres in St Anton.

Fixed it.

I'm not bashing the Mooserwirt, and it's been 3 years since I was partying it up in St Anton, but the Kanguruh is where some of my greatest/haziest apres ski memories began.

Originally Posted by ptavv

I'm not bashing the Mooserwirt, and it's been 3 years since I was partying it up in St Anton, but the Kanguruh is where some of my greatest/haziest apres ski memories began.

me too. it's been about 6 years but i haven't been to a better apres ski bar since. the drunken ski-crawl back down to the village is always fun too.

nice TR comish!

Originally Posted by comish

Random scenics after the storm:




Well no trip to St. Anton is complete without a trip or two to the Mooserwirt. We spent one night inside while it was still snowing / raining outside and another outside. This place is hilarious. Supposedly the most beer sold in Austria, but irrelevant of that, always a good time. Just check any preconceived notions of what you consider to be good music at the gate, have a few beverages of your choice, we recommend weisen bier inside


or Gluhwein outside:


Inside is a bit crowded, hot, and definitely stinky, but if its snowing outside its one of the best experiences to be partying, dancing, drinking and to know that the next day is going to be epic.



Cute, young Euro chicks.




The waiters there have some solid skills although it did suck to see one woman get drenched by 3 beers as they teetered off the guys tray. They carry these enormous trays through the masses rarely spilling at all.



This one is only like 2/3rds full.


The dancing and general mayham is like nothing we have in the states. Yeah, the Moose is a great apres-bar, Squaw's deck in the spring is a damn good tiem, and Whistler is probably the closest, but nothing rocks as hard as Austrian Apres-ski. They have songs and CD's created specially for it. Its for all ages. Young, old, they all have a few beverages and get down. There is no concept of being too old for a beer or party as I feel like predominates american culture. (ok, slight exageration and generalization, but largely true in my experience)

Mrs. Comish dancing on the bench in Dobermanns with about a 13 year old.



Whole family on the benches.


Then the Brits invaded:
Opps, off to a meeting, this will come later tonight or tomorrow, but here is a teaser of them and the small Avi's we saw:

do i am a bugger but please

i saw this cap thought no then i saw the avi - anyone else here thought yes this is the probem you don´t understand or do you work as a coronor ?

youve seen most of my "good" skiiing pics. Mosserwirt is a pretty hilarious place. I dont know if i can describe it as a bar though. We were definately in the middle of the dance floor for a good week when it was packed. Unfortunately most pics taken of us were by other people, maybe you have some of us? Im kinda pissed we dont have any good ones of us being complete assclowns. if you see any of these morons, let me know. we were pretty much dancing in the middle of the crowd outside everyday by 15:00.
weird request, i know, but it would be sweet to see random peoples pictures of us

Small world eh? Here's one I took of you guys from the iglu by the terrace....

funny, but it was funnier when a group of swedes and a group of brits called us Team Jihad on seperate occassions. We'd be hobbits if we didnt have beautiful flowing, and apparently, scarey beards.

i saw you in spar yesterday hitting on the grocery girl.

thats hilarious. she is one of our swedish neighbors.

Ok, here are some more from partying at the Mooserwirt. Love the Brits. They won the prize for bestest costumes.














Mr. Gorilla had some slight technical difficulties when it came time to chug...

Ah 1998... Gluhwein, Ischgl and new year's in Vienna, one of my favorite years of all time. nice report comish

This was on our final day. We got to play in some dense wind consolidated / heavy sorta-pow. Good fun. Not light fluffy goodness like some years, but smooth and untracked is always good.

Mrs. Comish off Schindler:







Mrs. Comish dextrous as fuck. Visibility like this was sorta the norm for most days.




Me about to drop into front side of schindler. People were being really good and respectful on the front side this time. Lots of conversation and discussion about going one at a time, etc. Good skiing, but not unbelievable. Again, very heavy, dense, sorta-pow.






Some yummy cafe before hitting the road. Love Euro cafe bars.

Remember the picts of the lack of snow, this shows a similar face to the final pict in my first post, now sorta covered with white goodness. What a difference a week can make.



Avi's:

On the day the Avi happened on the backside of Rendl it was Bluebird. Beautiful sunny day. Mrs. Comish and I are riding up the Arlenmahder sofa 6 pack with a group of Brits. They ask if it would be safe to ski the pitch below us. I sorta hum and hah hating to give an assessment of snowpack when I'm still evaluating it myself, especially to a group without any gear, but when most of the world is playing in the fluff. I say that there will definitely be avi's today somewhere in the area and to be super carefull and best not to be adventurous, but if they did make sure it was super low angle. Not 45 seconds later a border comes down this face causing this crack:



H- in answer to your question I'm pretty sure the one on the backside of the Ulmerhutte was skier triggered. There was however a lot of stuff that went natural. All this stuff was only going 6-8 inches or so, but having dug around off-piste before all the snow started I kner there was at least 6-8 inches of sugar on the ground which scared the piss out of me in case any of those things stepped down it could easily go to the ground.






Not sure you can see them in this pict, but the area below the lower set of rocks had all slid naturally from the W, NW wind.




Showing the remainder of the wind that caused so much of the slab formation and slides:

Finally, huge props and thanks to H-man, without whom this trip might not have happened. We have become huge fans of the Arlberg and will always return. H-, we appreciate everything.


You were with us throughout the trip. Here I am having an end of the day pizza next to your street.







We both hope to someday make turns and share a beer with ya in St. Anton. enjoy it in another week and may you have many a rippin Pow run.

Originally Posted by comish

Random scenics after the storm:




Well no trip to St. Anton is complete without a trip or two to the Mooserwirt. We spent one night inside while it was still snowing / raining outside and another outside. This place is hilarious. Supposedly the most beer sold in Austria, but irrelevant of that, always a good time. Just check any preconceived notions of what you consider to be good music at the gate, have a few beverages of your choice, we recommend weisen bier inside


or Gluhwein outside:


Inside is a bit crowded, hot, and definitely stinky, but if its snowing outside its one of the best experiences to be partying, dancing, drinking and to know that the next day is going to be epic.



Cute, young Euro chicks.




The waiters there have some solid skills although it did suck to see one woman get drenched by 3 beers as they teetered off the guys tray. They carry these enormous trays through the masses rarely spilling at all.



This one is only like 2/3rds full.


The dancing and general mayham is like nothing we have in the states. Yeah, the Moose is a great apres-bar, Squaw's deck in the spring is a damn good tiem, and Whistler is probably the closest, but nothing rocks as hard as Austrian Apres-ski. They have songs and CD's created specially for it. Its for all ages. Young, old, they all have a few beverages and get down. There is no concept of being too old for a beer or party as I feel like predominates american culture. (ok, slight exageration and generalization, but largely true in my experience)

Mrs. Comish dancing on the bench in Dobermanns with about a 13 year old.



Whole family on the benches.


Then the Brits invaded:
Opps, off to a meeting, this will come later tonight or tomorrow, but here is a teaser of them and the small Avi's we saw:

I know this cap just remember it !!! I skied so often in Lech , 6 month total 5 weeks Val D Iser rest Lech.That one will ALWAYS go off !! Never ski down there or it might be your last move !! NEVER GO TO SCHWARZWAND - 50 folks had died till 83 already !!! Valluga - spare it !

http://helpbf.funtigo.com

Oh no ! You already did it ! The Valluga ! Good you did not fall !