Telemarking
and snowboarding in Kitzbühel
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Up to then, it had been a really bad winter in Austria,
barely any snow, and the last snowfall dated back 2 weeks. We
had only 1 1/2 days of skiing to enjoy as we were planning to
watch the downhill. Having drunk quite a bit the night before,
the night life in Kitzbühel is really great, we unfortunately
rose late to a beautiful sunny day. New to the area, we didn't
really know where to go, but thankfully, some friends had arrived
a few days earlier and suggested we go up the valley, not to ski
in Kitzbühel itself, but on a connected resort, Resterhöhe.
An approximate 20 minutes drive towards Pass Turn, past Jochberg,
took us to a small 2 person chair going up a ridge, leading to
a pretty big area above the treeline. The whole region is pretty
nice, offering a view of the Austrian alps that cannot be seen
from most of the other lifts of the Kitzbühel ski region. |
| From the top of the lift, only a few runs sprout,
not very long and some of them quite flat. To get to the main skiing
in these parts, one must traverse quite a bit, and so traverse we
did. A few of us were on snowboards and it wasn't the most fun.
But, 2 traverses and 1 lift later, we were at the top. From the
said top, we saw some very nice untouched snow (untoouched snow?
it hadn't snowed in 2 weeks). Doubtfull, but exited, we raced down
from the summit, crossing some open fields with still some pretty
untracked areas, our doubts were abating as we were getting closer
to the bottom of the run and to the new lift that would wisk us
to the promised land. Wisk was a bit of an overstatement and the
lift was not detachable, but still fast enough to not let us die
of overexitment. Once on top, the sun was shining, the expectations
were met, and we got even more agitated as we had to do a traverse
to get to the steeper and longer part of the bowl we had previously
observed. About 5 minutes of hiking for the boarders and traversing
for the telemarkers and we were ready to scream down the slightly
heavy, but well appreciated shin deep snow. |
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The run was all that it had promised to be, but
a bit short, we decided to head over to a big bowl that was previously
hidden from our view from the top of the previous lift, that face
was in the shade and would offer lighter snow, we could see a
few tracks and there were some trees, just the perfect area for
the trees to bash a few telemarkers or snowboarders, they were
so convincing (the trees) that we followed their advice. From
the top of the lift, we headed towards the blind side, you cannot
exactly guess where you are headed, but soon enough we were above
some steep powder fields, intertwined with a few hungry looking
trees. We sent the telemarkers first to apease the trees' hunger
and the snowboarders managed to survive an incredible run: steep,
light snow (we were in the shade this time), danger, the trees
were hungrier than it seemed, and the telemarkers were not enough
to satisfy their incredible appetite and a nice little river with
ice bridges to take us back to the lift. No need to say that we
stayed there for the rest of our short day. At the end of the
day, the return was a bit annoying again, due to the traverses
and long flat runs back to the car, but the runs we had done were
definitively worth the while. All in all, this section is great,
but the runs a bit short.
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