skiline data summary

2014 2nd-7th March

Mayrhofen	Vert m	lifts	km
Sun	4,220	18	32
Mon	4,581	15	36
Tue	3,741	15	28
Wed from Zillertal Arena	7,297	20	58
Thu	5,246	11	20
Fri	4,391	15	32
6 days	29,476	94	206

Retrospective and thus inaccurate and incomplete diary notes ..

Sunday grading I started with Dave in Roberto's class, half Australian he apparently has taken an oath of honesty and thus says as little as possible. He is a patient and kindly man but his group was large and due to poor visibility and much rustiness was slow moving with back-to-basics lessons. I was bumped to Jack's smaller group in the afternoon and pootled around the main slope getting a feel for things. His greeting was a challenge to use the poles to jump into both bindings together.

Monday sees Jack's group trying a bit more technical tidy up - particularly for me and a few others joining the class - useful revision but as the snow has started to fall making it quite difficult to see bumps ahead in flat light. Also I'd picked up a mysterious hangover after mixing Austrian white wine with beer. That's my only excuse for still failing to make a tidy job of short-turns .. "with the poles James" repeated for the rest of the week. Could hear but somehow got out of sync at anything with any speed - probably weak legs also a problem. The situation in Crimea was a source of heated conversation about whether a military response was appropriate.

Tue and it is still poor vis but with some powder we ventured off piste or kept to the side where trees gave a clearer idea of the shape of the mountain as well as doing a mini tour during a break in the cloud. I found it pretty daunting to be honest but seemed to manage mostly, enjoying the powder and impressed with doing an off-piste segment right next to, and as steep as the Harakiri 78%. Great sauna and relaxing quiet night mainly - I think we tried Brian Cristopher along with Pieter but a bunch of people I'd thought were Russian killed the mood - turns out they were a Dutch family, the poor bored children just checking their phones whilst sat in the front row despite it being commented on - how rude!

Wednesday was beautiful and Jack's group caught a bus-ride to Zillertal Arena for a horseshoe trek, mainly on piste and fast moving it became exhausting with my rubbish technique as moguls began to form in the afternoon. My knees and legs were utterly done for by the end of that. We managed to get to the Ice Bar, Brian Cristopher and Bruckn Stadl though. Highlight had been dinner along with Pieter a software systems analyst in a plumbing/heating firm's IT department plus Joyce and Herman from the two Mike's group who also joined us. They are Dutch, he runs a software startup whilst she's an intensive care recovery nurse with links to Curacao and they plan to spend a year over there.  Perhaps this was the evening I met Bo and the guys at Bruckn Stadl.

Thursday not fully recovered my legs died on me after seeing the glacier in the morning as the speed just kept increasing and the moguls and slush in flat light was again defeating my poor technique .. I had lost confidence and wimped out of stuff having fallen earlier so left the group at 2pm after the descent from lunch as they still had an hour or so skiing after a short bus link. Worth it though for getting above the cloud that day and enjoying a panorama of peaks jutting though all around. Another very useful sauna and a very fun evening starting with Mike's birthday and earlier and later joined Joyce & Herman to see Brian Cristopher catching a good crowd and creating an infectious mood.

Friday our final day we all skied with Bo in the morning then a little more as a group of friends after lunch. Highlight was Whiskey that Joyce and Herman brought up the mountain and a bit of competition with Mike about who'd do the fastest slalom. He and Pieter did about 27s vs 23s from me and Bo was about 0.5 faster still but said a pro might clock about 15s on that short course. After a nice gluwein and strudel break Bo took a couple of gents for a bomb around and I tagged along. A nice hour in beautiful sun on mainly easy runs blasting through slush but with some bits of off-piste in the shade too. Had to be woken up after dinner and dragged out to see BC which this time was quite quiet but we had an early-ish start anyway next day.

Saturday frantic packing and then lots of waiting around, I finally got home and started washing stuff and let's say ... back to "situation normal ..."