Skiing in the Dolomites (again)

Once more it was off to Arabba for the annual snowHeads Birthday Bash pilgrimage to the Dolomites. My 5th time there, and similar to previous years, I drove down and stayed in Innsbruck, before driving the last 2 hours on arrival day and managing to get in a few hours on the slopes before most of the others turned up.

Day 1 was just a few lifts and runs over to Corvara on arrival day.

Day 2 was the first of 3 trips over to Santa Croce. Went down the Red to La Villa, instead of the Alta Badia Gran Risa WC GS course this time. As usual, the scenery was stunning.

Day 3 was the first of a few long hard days. Skied with Ronald et al mostly on Race Slalom skis over to Pozza di Fassa. Every time I'd been the Alba, the link over to Pozza had been closed due to weather, so this was new Dolomites territory for me. GPS stats said about 97km all in (52km skied) - would have been nice to hit the 100km.

See the route on endomondo.

Day 4 was a nice easy relaxed Sella Ronda orange (clockwise) loop.

Day 5 again ended up as a nice easy relaxed day out to Santa Croce again.

Day 6 was another long fast day with the guys on Race Slalom skis again, also venturing in to new territory for me. This time was rush round the Sella Ronda orange, down the Saslong Val Gardena WC DH in to Santa Cristina, then up to Seceda, speed down the long (10km?) run to Ortisei. There we grabbed a quick taxi ride across town to the Seiseralm lifts, then did the Seiseralm / Alpe di Siusi loop before grabbing the bus to Monte Pana. This then links back in to the Sella Ronda. A couple of black runs on Portovescovo before being chased off the mountain by piste patrol finished the day off nicely. Oh and checked off the 100km in a day too :) (just over 60km skied, total GPS distance of 106km, and 29 lifts).

See the route on endomondo.

Day 7 skied mostly with Ronald, basically playing in the Edelweiss Valley practising 1 foot skiing on the wrong (ie little toe) edge of the skis, then headed over to Selva to play on the Val Gardena WC DH run again.

Day 8 was the last day, again with Ronald and Degage we headed over to Santa Croce one last time before heading back to Innsbruck in the afternoon.

All the photos can be found here.

Skiing Zillertal

Just a quick 2 day trip, since it was a long wait from the sH Pre-Season bash in early December until the Birthday Bash in February.  Plus I wanted to practice a few of the things we'd covered in Tignes (bumps mainly), and I'd wanted to re-visit Zell am Ziller and ski over to Gerlos.

Day 1: Zell am Ziller and Gerlos

See the route on endomondo.

Day 2: Kaltenbach

See the route on endomondo.


All of the photos from Obertauern, Tignes, and Zillertal are in one album.

Photo Every Week 2012

After managing a full 365 photos in the One Photo Every Day challenge in 2010, and an aborted 365 in 2011 that turned in to a One Photo Every Week, I decided to stick with a One Photo Every Week again in 2012.

My favourite photos each month are those below:

Jan: Burg Frankenstein


Feb: Ice Sculpture


Mar: Mushroom


Apr: Sunny Sunday


May: Wasp


Jun: Liechtenstein


Jul: Nutter


Aug: Lapwing Lodge


Sep: Meadow


Oct: Red


Nov: Art?


Dec: Oooh, Powder!

There is also a full slideshow of all 52 photos.

Skiing Tignes (2nd try)

About the same time last year, I visited Tignes for the first time, as part of the snowHeads Pre-Season Bash. Back then the place was basically grass everywhere, except for the glacier, and the "Double-M" red run down to the Valley, and that was largely man-made and icy snow-cannon snow.

Originally I had thought about visiting Meribel for a ski clinic, but decided to return to Tignes, again on the snowHeads PSB. This time it paid off. It basically snowed all week, and significant numbers of runs were open, although some lifts closed from time to time due to wind etc.

I put my name down for a handful of lessons too, since I'd not been on any for a few years. 1 Moguls/Bumps clinic, and 3 group lessons for mainly piste performance. Glad I did - lots of things to practice on the next bash in February (and a private weekend in January).

Eventually (ie Thursday), the Sun did start to make a brief appearance. The powder was rather epic, and it was time to make best use of the visibility.

And then it became nearly a bluebird day.

There'd better be a PSB next year! I'm going back!

All skiing pics for 2012-2013 are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/SHSkiing20122013

Ski Amade

So it's the end of October, Graham says he has 2 days of leave to use up, then Nicky says "ditto", and then well so do I.  Thought that would be the end of it, but within a few days we'd booked a trip to Radstadt in Austria to sneak in a quick warm-up ski trip before the snowHeads Pre-Season Bash, with Pete, Jamie and another Graham along for good measure.

I sussed out that there's a train direct from Darmstadt to Radstadt, once per day, so booked that on bahn.de there and then.  Rather convenient being able to get to a ski resort with no changes, no airport carriage charges and no autobahn jams.

We stayed at Haus Susanne run by even more snowHeads, where some of the others had stayed previously, in winter and summer. From there the best option, given that it was still November, was to drive 15 minutes up to Obertauern for the skiing.

The rental car, brand new, blacked out windows, 7speed automatic, full screen satnav:

The crew - Graham, Jamie, Pete, Nicky, who's hiding behind Angela, and Graham:

And proof that Austria is not too low to snow:

All skiing pics for 2012-2013 are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/SHSkiing20122013