And this one does not continue the NZ story, but is about my ski trip to St Anton am Arlberg in Feb 2013. I decided to write it like this so when I'm old & past it, I can read & reminisce.
Not that I intend being old & past it for years yet.
It contains a lot of piste-maps, but I tried to home in & photo only the relevant bits for the surrounding descriptions.
If you can ski & read a piste-map, there should be no prob. If not, have a go at following my route! Better still if you've never skied, try it: it's awesome.
Before I went, my bro, Ray, sent me a letter with some hints & tips. Unfortunately I left it at work :-/
OK. I finally got to St Anton & skied. It'd been on my bucket list for yonks.
I went orginally in the 80's after visiting Kim in Crans for Christmas, but not being able to find a bed I could afford, I moved onto Kitzbuhel ~ but that's another story from a long time ago (& far, far away?).
So, after leaving home at about 2230 on Sat 9th to get the last train to the Airport, crashing out at Ringway for a couple of hours doing sudoku, checking in before 0300, flying at 0515, landing in Innsbruck at 0805 on a lovely crisp sunny morning, & arriving at Chalet Pia just after 10, I unpacked, got the kit on & headed off up the main street to the Rendl gondola.
I got my 1/2 day pass at 1205, & up I went.
My 6 day pass had already cost me £198, so an extra 36 Euros was neither here nor there & I was determined to make up for lost time, having not skied in Europe since Xmas 8. The map is a close-up (sorta) of the Rendl bit, & for my 1st European ski since Boxing Day 2008 I followed some chaps out of the gondola (AKA bubble) hoping I'd get to the Gampberg chair, but I ended up on R1, so down to the bottom I went.
There's a great little (long) red meandering down into town, but the shussy bits were very cold on the ears, & I donned the earmuff thingy I'd had since I was about 8. Honest! It & some mitts were Crimble presents when I was learning to ice skate at Blackpool. The mitts are long gone, tho. Poss due to falling over a lot, hands first? ?
Anyway, once back at the top of the gondola, I headed down blue R3 into red R8. R8 was kinda off-pistey & I sat down briefly - oops. Then it was up the Maass chair, & all the way down blue R4. Up the Maass chair again, then over to the Riffel1 chair via a mix of R11 & R4. At the top I took blue R11 all the way down to Riffel1 again. By this time I realised I'd been up all night, & basically had had no breakfast other than a bit of bread & butter & a couple of brews when we'd got to Pia, & I was feeling the chill. The 2nd time down off Riffel1 involved the red R12 to the bottom of Riffel2 & up to ski down the unpisted R14, which met the top of R11. I skied that until I found blue R13 for a trip down to the ladies & some sustenance at the Rendlbeach restaurant.
A brew & an amazing liver dumpling soup later (plus some choc covered raisins & a Snickers bar) I fell asleep in the sun. Only for a few min tho, & when I woke I got up & at it again. Having skied nearly everything south of the gondola station, & as it was about 2.30, I headed up Gampberg & skied the black R2a. It was quite fun, but hardly a black, I thought. Back up again 2 x more, once for once of the 2 red R2s & once for another black. The latter led straight onto R1a with a slight traverse across to the bottom of the unpisted R5 onto R1 for the ride home. I must admit to being pretty tired after not going to bed, so didn't tuck on the shussy bits. Plus it was too bloody cold to go fast & as a lady had said at the restaurant, she'd decided to slow down & do more pole planting to keep warm. I got to the bottom at about 1625.
Of course, those reading this who don't ski, won't have a clue about what I'm going on about in that last bit. Why don't you have a go? It's brill & you get to see bits of the planet non-skiing mortals seldom experience :-)
On reaching Pia I remembered about the 6 Nations game & 1 of the lads told me which pubs would be showing it. So I changed (toute suite Rodney), & off I went. It was bloody crowded & most seemed not to be actually watching, & kept blocking my view with their beer arms! :-/ so I ended up sitting on the stage. It was a fairly even mix of English & Irish, & I was hoping the guys in green would pull it off, but sadly, they didn't. I legged immediately after the whistle, & when I got back down the road, it was time for tea - yum. Those fresh batons and alpine butter are just the best :-p
After tea I hit the sauna ~ accompanied by 6 Savanas. AKA the 6 blokes from Streatham who sounded like a Harry Enfield sketch. See below for more sauna antics!
After the heat it was soon time for dinner - with free wine, & I sat with the 6 blokes, but avoided them for the rest of the Dinners - too loud: Esp Gerry!Come Monday b/fast, I asked for porridge but it came sugared ~ yew :-( But there was loads of very fresh & warm batons & that lovely alpine butter ~ yumyumyumyumyum :-) Then, after taking advice about the quickest way to Stuben, I headed off to the Nasserein gondola. At the top it was down the blue 20 to the bottom of the Zammermoos chair, up it, down black 10 & blue 11 to the Schindlergrat chair & after checking the time as I got off it, down red 14 and blues 12 and S1a to Stuben. As I pulled up near the Albona1 chair I checked the watch. 10 min. No idea what the length or vertical drop is for those 3 runs, but I didn't stop, even tho the thighs were burning a bit as I went under the road to Stuben.
In the Q there were people holding quilted thingies. I found out why about 1/2 way up.
It was frikkin freezin on that chair :-/
And even colder on Albona2. I put my hat on, hunkered down into my collar, & sat there with my mitts in front of my face trying to keep the wind off. Not pleasant!
At the top I headed off down red S4, caught the Albonagrat chair & decided to repair to the little cafe for an early lunch. Which in my case was a brew, a kiwi, some banana chips (courtesy of Bat. Cheers mate :-D ), some choc covered raisins, some dates, & another brew. Everything between the brews had got up there in my pockets & bum bag. While there I chatted to 2 men (German & US) who had cameras on the helmets. Apparently you get to see the best splats that way :-0.
Post lunch I went down the far side of the chair on red S4 at first then up & down 4x doing the various S4 routes either side. After the last time up I went down S3 all the way, a lovely sweeping red way out to the left with hardly anyone else in sight. However, as I turned right - back towards the Mittelstation, the wind came back with more than a vengeance, and I skied the last few hundred metres hiding my face behing my mitts. Narsty :-(
After being snowblasted, I nipped into the loo, & warmed everything up on the radiator, before getting it all back on in order to face the bitter wind. This time it was downhill again onto S2, initially a gorgeous wiggly run throught the trees, but the suddenly the red lollipops (AKA piste-markers) disappeared and I seemed to be on a very narrow road winding down more or less under the chair. As well as narrow & windey, there was a nasty drop into the Stuben valley, & crap light, so it wasn't a pleasant ski :-/
At the bottom I now knew to ski anti-clock around the house, and grab a quilted thingy for the chair.
I was now headed for the top again as I wanted to do S5 into S1 all the way down to Alpe Rauz, & go back over to St Anton. Which is what I did, & I got to the short drag at about 2pm so there wasn't too much of a Q.
Once back on the St Anton side & went up the heated :-) Valfagehr chair (it was nice to have a hot bot ;-p ), & went R at the top down red 13. Almost at the bottom, where it links onto blue 11, I turned sharp R to avoid a slower skier, & in the (still) crap light failed to spot I'd turned into a mogul. 'Course the skis more or less stopped dead, I didn't, & as I was proceeding in a righterly direction my body kept going & I badly pulled the top of the L calf. And lost a ski, but that's incidental. I lay face down in the snow, thinking "ow", & a couple of lads pulled up. The one on the skis had my ski & asked if I was OK. I started to get up, but now it was "OW", & the one on the board help me up while I tried to put wt on my leg. It wasn't happy about that at all, & it took me several attempts & about 5 min to get enough wt on it to get my ski back on :-(
As you may see, I was miles from bloody anywhere, but there was no way I was going to let them get me a blood wagon. Plough turns kinda worked, & it wasn't so steep once I was on the blue anyway. I even managed to parallels before the Arlenmahder chair. The 2 lads kindly skied down behind me. How sweet to help a lady in distress :-)
On the chair I had a look at the map & discovered there was a blue all the way down, so I took that - pretty slowly, it has to be said. The calf kept complaining, but didn't fail completely which was a relief. If it had, there were horde of peeps headed the same way 12 into 4 into 1. You can see it on Map3, & apparently it's known as Happy Valley. Once down (I ended up near the swimming pool) I started to walk home & after about 20 min hobbling along, a couple of well dressed 'senior' ladies stopped & asked if I needed help.
I was in there a while, & then it was nearly time for Dinner, so I dressed & Good scran :-) & aforementioned free wine. Afterwards, I walked up to Nasserein - about 200m away, but no sign of the skis. Boo. So I left a note for the Chalet lads & went to bed.
Come Tuesday morning I could walk a bit better but it was obvious there'd be no skiing for Shirl. I walked back up to Nasserein & checked with the Operator, but he hadn't seen them. I also checked at all the ski-hire shops, cafe's & the places where you buy passes & book ski school, but no luck. There were ski racks all over the place, but my skis weren't on any of them.
I retraced my steps towards town, but there was no sign of them stuck in the snow at the side of the path either. I reported to the main info desk at the bottom of the Gampen cable-car, & she rang around all the other lift stations & asked Ski School to keep an ear out for my bells. I'd had 2 of them since the 80s, so I Really wanted them back. Next it was a trip to the Police to make a report, via a shop where I bought a support bandage. As it was then lunchtime I went back to the chalet, strapped myself up & sat for a couple of hours doing sudoku with my foot elevated.
The rep, Fiona, stopped by to advise me to check out Lost & Found, & to sort me out some replacements. Premium skis/poles cost me £103 for 4 days. Boo :-/ After collecting some GS 163s, checking the L&F office, & spending a bit longer with my foot up, I decided to try out the skis before ther lifts shut.
Bizarrely, as I walked up to Nasserein I heard my bells, & on looking up hill to the next road traversing the valley, I thought I could see some poles stuck in the snow? ? ? ?
I took a quick whizz up the bubble & down again to test the skis (soggy, floppy & yuk), & went to Intersport to exchange them for GS 170s. I said to the man "have you got some longer heavier ones?" & he gave me a funny look & a lecture about changing my technique for skiing on carvers. Yeah. Right. Yadda yadda yadda. Then I went to check if I'd been dreaming & followed the same road I'd checked earlier in the day, & there they were, complete with 3 (rather battered) bells. I was well chuffed :-D.
So I tinkled my way back to Pia, got in the sauna, got ready for dinner & unlimited vino :-O. I shared my tale with Dad/son Matt/Tom, Andy & thingy who'd helped me get the boots off, & Andy from 'Manchesta' whose GF didn't ski so he did ski hols on his own. Matt shared his trick for minimal walking at the end of the day, which was handy the rest of the week.
As there was a pub quiz at the Nasserein Kellar at nine, I took my leave, joined some other Skiworld punters, & our team won :-) The prize was a bottle of champers and a chocolate medallion. I drank my share of the champers, but saved the medallion for lunch next day. It was quite a late one ~ given my plans for Wed, so I left at 11ish, v shortly after I'd quaffed my share of the bubbly.
Even tho it was till quite early, 3rd time up I stopped at the Seekopf restaurant for a loo/brew & a warm & then headed off down red 14, & took the Zursersee chair back up. Near the bottom of the chair I saw some folks on the black 15a, so decided to come back down for that before heading over to Zug & skied down red 15 again to get there.
Two turns onto it I fell over & slid quite a way before getting the edges to brake the slide. How embarrasing under a chair, but unlike NZ, no-one cheered or made other comments. Ah. How I miss the Kiwis :-)
Back up the top I had a loo stop before skiing down to the Madloch chair for my trip down to Zug. On the way up I could see peeps were taking advantage of the powder bowl either side of the chair. I would've myself if I hadn't been skiing alone.
The run down into Zug was the red 33 - a great long sweepy thing to the Zugerberg chair. Lovely :-)
At the top of the Zugerberg was a weird rope drag to get you high enough on the ridge to ski down to Oberlech etc., or to the Steinmahder, which was the way I went via blues 34 & 43. At the top I did red 45 down to the other side of the Q, which was the quicker version, it seems. Back at the top it was time to nip across to Oberlech going down via blue 35/red 35a/blue35, up the Hasensprung, & down blues 34 & 34a & red34b. I wanted to see if I could find any of the Skiworld hosts & punters (who'd paid 25E for the privelege of getting a bus to Lech & being shown around the pistes). No. No one about at the Glitterball Bar,so I went back up the Petersboden for a run down blue 34 before chilling with a brew for a while & my lunch (choc raisins, banana chips, dried apricots, & last night's winning medallion) & a brew. It was lovely to sit in the sun :-) & warm enough to strip off 2 top layers. After about 20 min, I donned the skis to go down blue 34 into town, but at the bottom a bloke sent me the wrong way & I ended up on the Schlosskopf chair in stead of the Rufikopf cable car. After (yet another) blue 34 - how many are there in Lech?, I walked across the river to the left of the 2 cables up to Stubenbach. It was just after lunch, so it was the usual game of Sardines w Skis!
At the top of the cable car, I needed to take the red 38a to ski back to Zurs. This was a lovely run into a deserted valley with a drag out connecting to a long blue - 38a & the Trittalp chair.
I figured I had time enough to play on this side of Zurs before needing to catch the bus back thru the tunnel, so I did the red 3a down to the Hexenboden chair, went up, & then went down the blue 3b before crossing the bridge over the road to complete the circle I'd started that morning. I think I skied everything on the official White Circle route, plus other bits here & there. However, I hadn't finished with Zurs, & after doing the up via the Zursersee again, & my final loo at the Seekopf (where I'd had a brew about 4 hours prev.), I went up the Muggengrat chair with a couple of Serbian off-pisters. It's a weird language. Like Polish, but not. At the top they went off left along the ridge & then under the chair, & I took the red 10 back round the edge into Zurs. I fell on the bumps near the top, & while I was heaving myself back onto my feet, a little kid & his dad whizzed passed. Well I wasn't being beaten back to the bus stop by a sprog, so I let the skis run a bit & caught them up. By this time I Was quite knacked, so I'm glad the bumps evened out a bit, tho I could've done without the poling at the end. if I'd known the route, I'd've schussed from higher up.
There was no Q at the bus stop, so Ray's fears were ungrounded (I had read his heiroglyphics, I just forgot to pack them!), & I caught the free bus to St Christoph. I figured the Q at Alpe Rauz would be ginormous so opted to stay on at that stop.
Once on, up & off the St Christoph chair it was an easy & familiar route back down Happy Valley. The only thing of note was the chamoix I saw hiding under a bush beneath the chair. The 4 English lads on the chair with me missed it, & one nearly lost his pole squirming to have a look. It was well hidden, tho, & only visible for a few seconds while the chair passed over the bush.
I don't know why this map came out sideways? Just tilt left ;-p It's the bit of map relating to route 10 in Zurs - see above.
At the top of the chair - on the Galzig plateau, I went down black 10 & red 4 which hooked up to the Happy Valley route home. However, this time I nipped left onto blue 20 & jumped on the Mattun chair which took me up to the Gampen plateau. To get down I did a mix of blues 24 & 23, blacks 22 & 25. The last enabled me to hook on the Kindisfeld drag due to the advice of Matt & Tom from the night before, & I kept my eye on the pink hotel & the little green wooden fir trees in the kiddy ski school bit to bring me out right above the little path down to the Pia. Smashing! No walking at the end of a Very long day's ski :-D 1st up was 0840, & the skis came off at the end of the day at 1620 ~ phew.Of course, I did the sauna thing with the Streatham 6 as usual, but, with the strapping on, the calf had behaved pretty well :-)
At Dinner I sat with 4 lads (2 skiers, 2 boarders) who played a game during pudding: "eat the pudding in a oner". As it was a delicious white chocolate flanny thing, I got a second helping so I could have a go. It went down in 1, & was just as delicious the 2nd time round :-)
So to Thursday . .
It dawned sunny, so, as the rest of the week was not looking good, I decided to head to Sonnenkopf. Given the previous day's antics, I had a late b/fast & didn't get the Nasserein bubble up until nearly 10. I headed straight to Stuben following Monday's route. There was a bit of a walk thru the village, & by the time the bus arrived at 1130, quite a Q. There was also a bit of a walk at the other end to the Sonnenkopfbahn bubble up, but I was cheeky & jumped the Q into a bubble with only 1 bloke in it. He commented in German about my bells, but when I said I didn't speak much German, he switched seamlessly into English & we had a nice chat. He also gave me his Sonnenkopf map, which was a bigger scale than the area ones. He also told me the best way to get to where I'd planned to ski, so I was ahead of the game when we parted at the top in Eisbarenland. Please ditto with head for this map!
1st job was to get the baby drag I & ski to the bottom of the Obermurlbahn chair. I went up & down this a few times, doing red 2, blue 5 into red 6, & blue 5 into 1, before going up the Reidkopf chair to do blue 7 in to red 7a, up again, & blues 7, into 7b, into 1 to the Mittelstation.
I got into the bubble up which let me out at the Sonnenkopf Bergrestaurant & lunch.After lunch, which came out of the pockets & bumbag again - plus a brew, I went looking for stuff I hadn't done yet, including black 10.
It was up Sattelkopf, down blue 5 to the chair again, & back up to 2200m to do red 3 & right onto 10
What great fun 10 was. It was steep & v slightly icy in the hollows around the bumps, but I tended to turn on the top of them so I got the best (braking) snow. It was quite long & finished with a left onto a track, round bends to the right & left, & finished at the bottom of the Obermoos chair. It was so much fun, I decided to do the reds at the top & come back for another go before I skied down for the bus.
At the top of Obermoos I went left to the next chair ~ which comes out at 2300m, the highest spot at Sonnenkopf. Off there I did the red 9, which had an alternative route at the top: a nice steep section. There were a load of peeps standing right across the piste on the lip, which was slightly annoying, but I just skied round the L-hand piste marker (AKA lollipop), & popped off the top. Another nice little run,but the steep bit was too short: Only about 150m :-(
I went back up Gatingrat chair & decided to ski from the highest point to the bubble station in the valley without stopping, & taking in 10 again on the way down. Which is what I did, doing reds 9, into 3a, into 9a, into 9, into the fun black 10, & finishing with 4a through the trees to the bottom. Apart from the slightly boring road thru the trees, it was fun, & No Poling :-))
There wasn't much of a wait for the bus, which I did with a Dad from Cambridge & his 2 teenagers. We were the only ones left on by Stuben, & walked back to the Albona1 chair together. As they faffed a bit getting sorted at the bottom I went up on my own, but the son shot past me on the schussy bit of route S1 down to Alpe Rauz.
There was quite a Q at the drag up to the Valfagehr chair, & I picked the wrong side :-( The family went on the other & were on the Valfagehr chair about 10 in front of me, courtesy of several people falling off the drag. I was quite fun to watch peeps near the front of the Q leg it up onto the drag run to grab the coathangers vacated by the fallees (is that a word?). One guy jumped about 3' up to grab it & then jumped round to face up as the pulley fed out (if you've never seen a drag-lift, you'll have a job visualising this ;-p ). One other guy herringboned straight up the drag run & caught up with a girl who was being hauled up on the R-hand hook. He reached out for the hook, missed, & then the girl reached back & he grabbed her hand.
It could've been nasty :-o, but she was strong enough to stay on track, & they got a huge cheer from the watching Q when he finally managed to get his bum on the left-hand hook :-D
At the top it was Happy Valley time again, & I decided to ski down into town. I passed the family at the bottom of the Zamermoos - well the 2 kids were standing around. Dad must've gone splat & they were waiting for him? As I passed under the Galzig cable I bumped into 4 of the Streatham 6 - one of whom was in a right daft hat (but who am I to comment with bells on my poles ;-p ). They invited me for a drink at 1 of the piste side bars, but I was fairly knacked & decided to get in the sauna before they did then I could lie down. It was 1655 when I stopped, so I'd made the most of my pass money again.
The youngest of them, Simon, was already in the sauna, & said he'd been skiing on his own all day as he'd got fed up with his big bro always telling him what to do! Next 1 in was Andy, the one with the hernia who'd been told he shouldn't exert himself. Mark & Phil came next, followed by Big Bro, Gerry (or Gez as they all called him). He was the one in charge, & the one with the loudest 'Loadsmunny' voice. He seemed to reckon he was a good skier (ie fast), so I said "well with your mass, you will accelerate faster than most people". He didn't seem to mind too much I was insinuating he was fat ;-p But he was. Not a pretty sight nearly naked :-%
At one point, while I was hanging out of the window cooling off, I noticed the smaller of the two towers on the church looked like a little owl, so I took my camera up there the day after & took this photo. Unfortunately, as it had been snowing all that day (see below), it had got dark sooner, so it's not as obvious as it was in the starlight the evening before. After I also noticed the larger tower's clocks looked a bit like eyes as well, so it's a kind of 2 owl photo ;-)
On Friday I went up at 0920, but the weather was not good for seeing where you were going. Great underfoot. Crap on the eyes.
It snowed nearly all day somewhere, & the light was really poor most of the time: It was either flat, or a whiteout. I went up Nasserein, did black 25 down, went up the bubble again & did black 22 down to the Gampen chair. At the top I went into the Gampen cafe for a brew & the waitress was really rude & offhand :-/ ~ but the music was great :-)
As I hadn't done red 21 yet I skied that down to the village & got on the Galzig cable. At the top it was virtually a whiteout, but I went looking for black 2 anyway. I didn't find it & ended up on blue 5. I think it would've been quite nice if I could see? I had a slightly scary moment: when skiing to the left a lollipop sudenly appeared out of the whiteness so I had to turn right damn smartish to avoid getting a lollipop in the face. My left outside edge actually scraped along the pole. Close!Towards the bottom of 5, near the Osthang chair, visibility was better & I could see the village below. Maybe it's lifting?, I thought & got on the chair. Back at the top it was still crap, but I tried to find 2 again, keeping more left. Sadly I ended up back down at the Ostfang, so I gave up on 2 & decided to ski down to St Christoph, as I hadn't done that yet. That was on blue 8, which again was probably really nice if one knew the way, but I had to just follow skiers who obviously did. As with other runs I didn't know, I left the shuss too late & had to pole the last bit & herring/side-step up to the chair. The St Christoph chair takes you back up to the Galzig plateau at 2185m, & as the run off Valluga starts 500m higher up I thought I go up & see if I ended up above the cloud.
No :-/ :-(
Valluga1 is a traditional cable car, hanging above everything like the one where James fought Jaws etc. At the top, a lot of people turned left to ski down, but I turned right at 1120hrs for an early lunch (Hawaiian toast) at the Vallugagrat restaurant. And very nice it was, too, Precious ;-) ~ name that film! Hehehe. I also had 2 x gluwein, & due to so much alcohol, took my time eating, paying, & going to the loo. When I headed out on to red 19 at 1250, I was the only skier in sight, as I was 'between cables'. That is, the last cable had disgorged its load, & they were either sitting in the restaurant or long gone down 19. I was all alone 2650m up a mountain!
So it was a lollipop to lollipop job down 19 to the bottom of the Valluga drag. The bloke there was blond & quite cute, but probably totally unimpressed by my slow & hesitant progress out of the white.
At the top I hadn't a clue where to go? ? ? & stood around for quite a few minutes hoping for a lessening of the white & the apprearance of a lollipop. I knew I was at the top of red 14, but I couldn't tell whether to go left or right, & as I didn't fancy falling off a precipice, I stayed put.
Eventually, a red lollipop with 14 written on it appeared in the whiteness, so I headed towards it & did a 'ski to the lollipop, stop, look for the next lollipop' palaver more or less all the way down to where the top of the Schindlergrat chair came out. As I'd skiied that on Mon & Thurs, you'd've thought I'd fare better, but had it not been for various skiers coming down off the chair I'd've been palavering it all over again :-/When I hit route 12 at the Ulmer Hutte I went left down it,& back into Happy Valley. I looped left off 4 onto 20 & the Mattun chair, as I'd done they day before, then finished my day on black 25 & blue 24. I was back above Pia by 1350.
As it was so early, I got changed & went shopping for my St Anton ruckie badge & any bargains I could find. Although I hankered after getting some flourescent orange ski pants, I kept strong, & just bought a badge for 5 Euro! I got into the sauna well before 4 & had the place to myself for ages before the Streatham 6 arrived. It was 5 actually. No idea what happened to the other 1?
I sat with 2 junior doctors who were partners: she was from Chile. The next table along was occupied by 2 groups of 4 lads (4 of which I'd eaten with earlier in the week). They decided to have another "eat it in a oner" pudding game at Dinner, & after eating mine and asking if there were any left, the Chilean Dr gave me hers :-p. It was another awesome flanny thing - dark choc this time. With not a great deal of encouragement from the 8 lads I had a go, too, but was laughing way too much to get it down in 1 go, & ended up with some of it all round my mouth. But I licked it off :-D Will I ever grow up ? ?
So to the last day, Saturday, & I was up early & on the Nasserein bubble before 0915.
I was on a bit of a mission & wanted to ski everything I hadn't yet (apart from the boring blues throught the trees), so I went black 2 searching (via red 20a, blue 4 & the Zammermoos chair). Thanks to a tip from the guys at Pia, I found it this time, & skied down to the bottom of the Mattun chair & up that and the Kapall chair off the Gampen plateau. After a run down red 37 & up the Schongraben drag, I had a brew/loo stop at 1120 in the Kapallrestaurant, & then went down blacks 35 & 25. And I timed myself ;-) ~ well it gives you a target if you're skiing alone & makes you behave & not wuss out & traverse. As I hit the junction I decided to count the turns I made down 25 - 123, & it took me 12 minutes. Incidentally, the piste map tells me 25 is called Fang :-O, but it wasn't savage at all, really. At least not at that time of day with proper snow covering all the mounds of fake stuff, & not yet any moguls of any size. I went up the Fang chair & did blue 24, red 21 & blue 1 down to the village & then headed out & up to Rendl to do the stuff I'd not done 6 days previously. & if truth be known, I also wanted another bowl of liver sausage soup :-p
At the top of the Rendl bubble I did lunch (with Jagertee - Yum) straightaway, then went up the Gampberg chair to do red R2. After the 2nd time up the chair I skied back down from the top using R2a, R1a & R1, then doffed the skis again to walk back to the Galzig base station for a lift up the hill (Can you doff skis??). I continued straight up on Valluga1 - it was better vis than on Friday, so I left my skis in the racks & took the TINY Valluga2 to the top. There's quite a good 360 viewing platform up there, & I was able to see where I'd been on Wednesday, and a bit of the Stuben area. Schindler Spitze was in the way of getting a view of a lot of the St Anton stuff, but there were tiny dots here & there, on & off piste. Taking the cute little cable car back to the Vallugagrat restaurant, I treated myself to (yet another) Jagertee & a brew before getting back on skis & off down red 19 as I'd done the day before. Except now I could see, & caught up to some slower bods just short of the drag.
The plan next was to head back over to Kapall & do 35 & 25 again as my 'last run', so, as for most days it seems, after reaching the top of the Valluga drag & skiing down the rest of 19, I went left onto blues 12, 4 & 20 before taking the Mattun chair back to the Gampen plateau. On my way down the top end of 4 (the schussy bit), I passed 2 of the Streatham 6, who heard my bells & waved as I went by. They were all on blades, & had no poles, so schussy bits were difficult for them. Ah - what a shame ;-p
I got straight off the Mattun chair onto Kapall, & was a bit sad to think this would be my last St Anton run.
I was determined to go straight down both blacks, turning as much as poss. Which I did, skiing left after turn 275* to traverse across to the green Xmas trees & the pink hotel.
As I had to take the skis back to Intersport, I kept heading left & I think it was about 1610 when I took my skis off just short of the Nasserein bubble.
Of course, I didn't have his poles, so I did a quick turnaround at Pia after I got out of the ski boots, & took them back too.
After the (now traditional) sauna, Dinner was awesome - a lamb shank, good spuds & loadsa greens, the unlimited wine, followed by another game during pudding - a syrup sponge with custard and lots of syrup ~ very Calories! This time the game was "eat the pudding with a knife" - very student/rugby club, which those not trying to eat syrup sponge & custard with a knife video'd on their mobiles. It's probably on Youtube by now?
I did not participate. I'd only done the others because I wanted more pudding! ! !
After all the jollity it was time to pack & get a reasonably early bed, as the Manchester plane was 0630, & our coach was leaving Pia at 0515
And that's about it, really.
* Well I impressed myself, even if you're not!
OAO
