ski_itJR Just got back from a big trip to Munich and Austria! I know what you are thinking where does this kid get all the time and money to travel. Ski_it set me up as a trust fund baby by doing ski magazine photo shoots in the 80s so I could live in the lap of luxury. Sadly my ski wife couldn’t make the trip due to an injured shoulder but don’t worry she had a nice time while I was gone! I started off solo in Munich and bopped around there for couple of days seeing the sights and drinking beer. Then 7 friends landed on a Friday and we took a ~ 2hr train from Munich to Innsbruck Austria. It was super easy and you can bring your own beer on the train which was nice. We stayed right in downtown Innsbruck and most of the hotels there have dedicated ski bus access to pick you up in the morning which is very convenient. There is also a great public bus system we used when the ski bus times didn’t work for us. Some of the crew waiting for the bus. A lot of the mountains in the Innsbruck area were on the Indy pass. The Indy pass gives you a two day Innsbruck city ski pass which you can add more days to. If you add on two more days you are buying another 2 day pass. Based on emails I had with the company I thought I could get a 4 day pass using the indy pass for 2 of the days. They don’t allow you to get 4 day pass pricing which lost me like 20 euro. You can use the Innsbruck City Ski Pass at like 10-12 different resorts in the area. First day we went up to Axamer Lizum. We were treated to a blue bird day in the high 30s. There wasn’t any fresh snow and most parts of the off piste were boney. I was able to find some untouched thick snow in the trees which made my day. Sitting at the top and enjoying a beer was definitely more of a highlight than the skiing. In good snow I could see this place popping off! The next day we went out to Stubaier Glacier. This is by far the best of all the Innsbruck ski areas. It’s the highest ~ 3100m, largest, has the most lifts, and access to big touring days outside of the resort. It had so much off piste skiing which was a ton of fun. The glacier was at least 500m taller than the other areas so the snow was the best here. You have to take a gondola up to get to the main ski area but at the end of the day you can have a death race past all the Jerries on a massive switch back run out. You will see a lot of pics of this guy in green. This is my buddy Hatch and he is probably one of the best skiers I know. Dude ripped it on the WPI ski team in college and now just dunks on all of us at the resort. He and I skied a lot of off piste laps together on this trip. I got some great photos of him ripping powder and he got some great videos of me face planting after getting 2inches of air. Here is the angle looking down at the stuff he was ripping. At the end of the day we skied from the top to the very bottom of the resort. The run was 4.5 miles and ~ 4500ft of elevation. We went all out zooming past people on the trail out. Hatch did it in 10 minutes… We skied a second day at Stubaier Glacier and were graced with our 3rd blue bird day in the upper 30s. We met a guy from Bolton Mass who ripped it with us all day which was fun. We aprés’ed at the top each day with Radlers and just soaked in the sun. We chased as much thick off piste powder as we could. The name of the game this trip was how much work you had to put in to get good turns. Often it was 40 percent good turns and 60 percent skiing crap. At the end of the day Hatch and I skied at the edge of the resort, got lost, and found some of the glacier which was cool. On the last day skiing in Innsbruck most people took a rest day. Hatch and I chose to go up to Schlick 2000. This mountain is on the same access road as the glacier but is closer to Innsbruck. This place was tucked away. You take a gondola up out of the valley over a mountain into a bowl with great snow and features. We hiked a few minutes above the lift and traversed over to get some fresh tracks! The turns up here were phenomenal and I got a great picture of Hatch skiing with some kind of halo effect above him. Ski_it told me what it was but I forgot… I ended up biffing a few jumps and sending myself through the washing machine so we took lunch. The main lodge at the top was one of the nicest lodges we went to. Even the bathroom had a view. While we were eating paragliders were going by the main windows. At the end of the day we took a series of buses back to innsbruck and bopped around before catching a train to Kirchberg In Tirol. This is a town near Kitz Ski and Ski Welt. We took a bus from the center of Kirchberg the next morning to Brixen to hit Ski Welt. Ski Welt is on the indy pass. I was very underwhelmed. I forgot to take pictures while I was there. The top was ~ 1600m so there was almost no snow. The terrain was basically a series of farms connected into a massive ski area. We did eat at a really good restaurant on the mountain though. If the mountain had good snow it would probably ski better but we didn’t go back. I did take a pic of a chondola that had two separate tracks at the bottom to divide the two. Thought you lift nuts would enjoy that. I’ll keep this part brief since this is getting long. The 3 next days we skied at Kitz Ski which is in Kitzbuhel and surrounding towns. I ended up buying day tickets for like $100 a day. The kitz mountains are a bit higher than Ski Welt so the skiing was much better. We were able to find good snow off piste and it snowed one of the nights so we got some fresh turns in 2inches of snow! We mainly went there to say we had skied the Hahnenkamm. That thing was steep and icy. Crazy that people go 70mph down that thing. Day 2 at Kitz we took a tram to the further part of the mountain that was higher. We stopped at an amazing lodge at the top with a panorama view. Here is where we started the üntz. The party scene at kitz is crazy. Places have DJ’s starting at noon and people pop off. There’s old ladies the same age as Mrs. Ski_it buying full bottles of vodka and dancing on tables. We skied back toward Kirchberg and stopped at another aprés spot that was going off. Once that closed we were treated with a fading light run down to the base. Some people took the last day as a rest day but a few of us skied. We ended out the trip skiing down to the town of Kitzbühel to explore and the rest day people met us there. Its a posh town with lots of shops and nice restaurants. We got some fondue and headed back to Kirchberg. We took a train and flew out the next day from Munich. All in all it was a solid trip. It was tough hearing that New England was getting snow the entire time but that’s the way it is!
ski_it Great report. It’s a halo or a circumferential sun halo or a 22° halo. Trust Fund?? April 1st isn’t for another month.
Schweig_1 Great photos! Coincidentally I’m in Kitzbühel right now. Friday and Saturday was snow fog. Today was better. No clam chowder in the lodges, but they all serve wienerschnitzel and bratwurst. I agree Ski Weld is super huge, but not as interesting.
ciscokid Schweig_1 so was this a business trip that you flew the jet yourself or is this a vacation where you have somebody else does the flying first picture I thought was from the air at first they were trying to get Dr. Lane to come up to bar Penn Mountain sports James is been talking with him back-and-forth and it should happen soon I know you were with us on the original hike back in 2015. Hope you’re flown to Telluride or Aspen lately are they white knuckle flights?
JimK Nice report! Thanks for sharing. I went to the Alps over the last 11 days of January, Chamonix and Grindelwald. It was fun and I skied some cool stuff. I came home exhausted as I lugged lots of gear the whole time on trains and buses. The skiing was the easy part:-) Here’s a report on one day of our trip: here
ski_itJR JimK I agree lugging the gear was tough in some of those train stations. You had to go down and then back up just to get out of the station.
trackbiker If you’re going to Europe take your boots and rent skis and poles. They have a wide range of great skis for rent at reasonable rates. Probably less than the cost of baggage on the airline if you’re paying for that. Even if your not paying baggage fees It’s not worth hauling your skis on planes, train, and automobiles. Going out west; I take my skis. Going to Europe only; only taking my boots.
Schweig_1 ciscokid I apologize in advance for hijacking this thread; To answer your questions Ciscokid, It was purely a vacation for me. It was something I always wanted to do. I have flown people into Aspen and Telluride many times in years past, not so much now. My former employer owned a slope-side condo at Aspen. Both airports are “one way in and one way out”. As a crew we do a safety briefings before each approach, and make sure we have the flaps and landing gear down well in advance, at least 20 miles out. We have a tailwind landing limitation of 10 knots. If the weather is bad, we divert to Rifle (for Aspen) or Montrose (for Telluride), which happens 30% of the time. I would enjoy meeting up with Dr. Lane (depending on my work schedule).
