Powder boards ready. The snow appears to be good
The snow IS good. But there aren’t any tracks. Why?
Because the majority skis the west side, where this is a good option
that is the same side as the lifts and pistes
We are going there later. Right now we are going down the north east and east sides. Here
And here. Sportgastein is spitzenklasse today
Sequence of blur (although the focus is right - getting powder turns)
Raise your hand if you are happy with the conditions
I said your hand, but I get the point
The drawback of going down this side of the mountain is that we need to take the bus or a cab back to the lifts and waste a lot of time. That doesn’t bother us too much. Quality before quantity
Apparently there is more than powder here. Rocks have been spotted. And attempted destroyed. Rock vs. human: 1 – 0
New location, new opportunities. Good to go
It seems to be a popular area
but we manage to find untracked snow
Enjoying soft snow from the backseat
We get several runs before the entire face is tracked out
We order refill of snow for the next day
For some reason some members of our party decides not to go skiing for a day. Their loss. Bad Gastein has thermal springs, hence entitling Gastein to add a ‘Bad’ to its town name. Bad is German for bath and - as incredible as it may sound - not only a negative term given by displeased tourists or inhabitants. The water contains a small amount of Radon. But there is no reason to worry. It is a special, good isotope. Nice! A positive type of radio-activity. Needless to say, our party is impressed. Hoping to glow in the dark in fluorescent colours, preferably green, they stay in the water as long as possible. Only to get disappointed discovering that the only effect is wrinkled skin and that effect isn’t even lasting. What a hopeless way to waste a ski day.
After the snow fall some of us head back to Dorfgastein. We decide to do some runs down the west side
Unfortunately the temperature is a bit too high for perfect powder and the amount of fresh snow is lower than anticipated
We get a phone call from our friends who are at Sportgastein (picture taken the first or second day so there should be more snow at this time)
We are told that the snow fall has been greater and at a lower temperature than at our current location so we decide that there is no time to loose and call a cab. When approaching the parking lot to pick us up, the cab driver shows no sign to slow down until the very last second. He brakes hard, sliding sideways missing us by a meter. Promising. We drive 50 meters before he shows slight signs of mental instability standing on the horn and giving the finger to the car in front of us because it is not going fast enough. It seems like we picked the right driver to get us from one place to another at the speed of light. When encountering slippery road surface he employs a remarkable technique: 1) Full speed until losing road grip 2) Regain control 3) Repeat from step 1 until we are at our destination sideways through every curve. Helmets are used. We keep his number in case we miss our flight back to Norway confident that he’ll get us home faster than the plane.
We decide to try the front side first
The snow is starting to get a bit heavy at the lower sections, so we decide to only ride the top lift for a while. The fluffy new snow at the top is barely covering the rocks on the ridge, but this looks promising
The snow is good but not as deep as the north side of the mountain. Still it’s acceptable
We had a great week and were lucky with the weather. Powder, sun, no wind pluss a refill of snow as soon as the old snow got tracked out was an OK combination. Almost any ski area is good given such conditions. The temperature rose above the freezing level as we left, rain and heavy snow increased the avalanche risk. Lifts closed and we felt lucky. The relatively low elevation of the lift systems leaves the place vulnerable to high temperatures and rain. The best lift system of the valley, Sportgastein, is prone to wind and is often closed. Even if Sportgastein is open, access to the most interesting off-piste area at the N – NE sides of the mountain is often closed off. At least that is what we were told.
Oh yeah, if you’re planning on skiing exposed lines, you might want to use a survival suit just to be on the safe side
PS. I meant to post this half a year ago. Better late than never. Maybe.
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