A few of my favorite things: St Anton, Jan, 2013; A video TR...

[bendtheski]

When my brother came to visit Colorado in November and offered to throw me some frequent flyer miles to ski St Anton in January, I was skeptical. I live in ColoRADo; how could skiing anywhere else be any better??!!

As the weeks went by, and we continued to get very little snow here, St Anton started looking better and better. They were actually getting snow, and since it had been over twenty years since my last ski trip to Yuroland, I decided I should take my bro up on his generous offer.

My brother's company has an office in Darmstatdt, near Frankfurt, and this would be the launching point for our three day holiday in St Anton. One of his co-workers (German) picked us up at the Airport, and after a snowy 5 hr drive, we arrived at our destination. It was around 6 in the evening, and the streets of St Anton were filled with people still in ski clothes walking to and from the many Apres bars, restaurants, and hotels. It immediately struck me that this was the real-deal Tirol village that so many US resorts try to mimic, and if I hadn't fully appreciated how lucky I was to be invited on this trip, well that was about to change!



We quickly checked into the hotel, and then met up with the rest of our group for dinner. The group consisted of 4 of my brother's co-workers from the Darmstadt office (2 guys, 4 girls), and two guys from their Japan office. The Germans were St Anton regulars and suggested we go to the Rodel-Alm for dinner. A short walk later we were loaded into the back of a 4wd truck, and carted a few hundred feet up the side of the mountain to the Rodel-Alm. The deck of the Rodel-Alm was crowded with one or two person sleds, and our German friends told us this is how you get back to the village. I sensed the gauntlet had just been laid down, and determined that my sledding skills should be sharpened with liberal application of alcohol and pig knuckle! Of course the Germans were seasoned veterans, and easily crushed my brother and I on the descent, in spite of my bro's head first approach on the Rodel. I was fairly confident that skiing the next day would offer us a chance for redemption!



The sun rose clear on a blue-bird day in the Alps, with 1-2 feet of fresh from the previous 2-3 day storm cycle. The large group quickly splintered into smaller groups according to ability, and within a run or two, my bro and I found ourselves alone and in search of untracked GNAR! Not really being familiar with the area, the GNAR was elusive, but we did manage to scare up some less tracked terrain, and both fell victim to some small, hidden drop-offs that ended in double ejects and laughs all around. We rejoined the group for lunch and ended the day with a last run down an easily accessable, somewhat steep, and relatively untracked couloir off the Schindler Spitze. It was a good day!

Somebody got after it!



cont'd...

[Shadam]

nice ...

[HansJob]

Mach! Bitte.

[bendtheski]

...cont'd

The next morning we crossed the road to Rendle(?) and picked up some scraps leftover from the previous storm before hitting the terrain park and embarrassing ourselves, then headed back to the Rodel-Alm for lunch. The place seemed completely different in daylight, and I was kind of bummed not to find any sleds available for a redemption run. Lunch was heavier than my usual clif bar fare, and the Weissbier and schnapps only served to turn my legs to rubber for the rest of the afternoon. The weather also became overcast, worsening visibility, but providing a valid excuse for my lackluster skiing.




I can't remember the name of the bar we went to for Après, but they had an elevated toy train running around the bar, and were showing a 1930's film; "Der Weisse Rausch" on one of the big screens. The film featured Hannes Schneider and Leni Riefenstahl and is kind of a goofy account of a young village girl's skiing exploits in St Anton. Lots of cutting edge filming and skiing techniques for the time, and a few shots of the Hotel Post and the Antonius Parish Church, with very few other buildings in the area. As I said, the film was pretty goofy, but it struck me that the people skiing in the film were probably some of the top rippers of the time! Many of the lifts and runs in St Anton bear Schneider's name, and I later found out he is the father of Arlberg technique of ski instruction, and helped train soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division during WWII. I couldn't help recalling some scenes from The Sound of Music, and instead of the usual souvenir T-shirt, I ended up taking home a 1930's cartoon style poster of Schneider surrounded by snow bunnies on skis, plus a German made cuckoo for the wife.





The last day dawned overcast again, but I took a quick walk to photograph some of the old hotels downtown before heading out to ski. We did a mellow side-country tour that turned up some more decent scraps before heading back to the Rodel-Alm for an early lunch, and an early departure since weather was closing in, and we still had a 5 hr drive back to Darmstadt. Probably just as well that we did since the entire Frankfurt area was hit with a major ice storm that evening which shut down the airport and made the last few hours of driving pretty treacherous.



The flight home was somewhat nightmare-ish with residual delays out of Frankfurt from the previous day's closure, but the hassle of overseas travel was well worth it! I couldn't help thinking that if I had been more adventurous in my youngth, that this would have been an incredible place to ski-bum for a few seasons before figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I might have become slightly bummed at this point if it hadn't been for my brother inviting me to join him on his company's ski trip next year, originating from their Japan offices to Hokkaido!!! Besides, at 50 I'm still young and have plenty of time for more epic adventures!

Finally, what TR would be complete without a GapePro edit? I originally though of using the Sex Pistol's "Holiday's in the Sun", but thought it might offend the German crew, so instead settled for Wycleff Jean's "It Doesn't Matter", because really, what could matter less than my GoPro footage from Austria? Enjoy!



So there it is. I'm officially on record as having posted stoke. Now I can go back to bitching like I'm paid for it. Mucho grassyass to my brother John!

[hutash]

ski St Anton in January, I was skeptical. I live in ColoRADo; how could skiing anywhere else be any better??!!

...

You don't get out much, do you?

St. Anton is a great place. We did the sled thing in Ischgl, great times after too many beers