Rauth Hutte

Hans has been here just one night when we got him out on his first ski tour up to the Rauth hutte on the flank of the Hohe Munde. The snow was great and we got some pretty deep powder turns with the dogs! Here are some pictures of the day!

-Owen

Stuiben Kopf ski tour with variations Dec 16

Yesterday Alex and I got out on a ski tour to the Stuiben Kopf, a ski tour that during the normal season is a short tour that I use as an excuse to go drink beer in a beautifull alpine setting but when no lifts are open turns into a longer tour with real route finding and an overall good time. This is the only time i have ever been on this tour and not seen more than 10 people skinning up at the same time. We broke the trail teh whole time which was an added bonus (I'm weird)

We met at the Kreuzeck bahn in a rainstorm before setting off up the Kreuzeck and on to the Langenfelder lift that we were pleasently suprised to find was above the snow line. From the top of this lift we skied some powder down to the Hochalm Bahn which is not yet. At that point I was going throw the skins on and start skinning up the run to the Y that you usually drop into the Bernidein but Alex  reminded me that there is a hiking path in summer that goes directly from the kreuzeck to the Bernedein so instead of putting on the skins we skied below the Hochalm bahn traversing right and eventually found the summer hiking path before putting the skins on. After skinning for 25 minutes we were skinning accross the Bernedein run and on to where the normal start of the tour when the lift is running.

After 30 minutes on the normal skin track we made our way right as if we were going to head to the Alpspitze but instead made our way to the edge of the cliff that the Stuiben hutte sits on went to a small klettersteig through a small gash in the cliff side that had been pointed out to me last winter but I had never tried. We put the skis on the pack and made our way up and over the rock band putting us 200 or 300 meters above the hut were the usual skin track is that goes from the hut. After making it up and over the ridge we kept on skinning up until we reached the top of the Stuiben kopf...or Stuiben Spitze, I get the two mixed up but they are 100 meters apart so it doesn't really matter!



After a quick meal and stripping the skins we made our way down the opposite side of the ridge to the valley skiing a small couloir with some bare spots at the top that ended up having much better snow the further we got down into the valley. Once in the bottom of the valley we straight pointed the skis and made our way back to the winding skin stack through the trees and out to the Bernedein run where we put the skins back on and climbed are way out of the unopened area and back to the Kreuzeck bahn for the long, wet ski back to the valley. Overall fun day and first day of ski touring this year that was not just straight up and straight down that that added some spice to the day as well as some fun route finding. Great day!

-Owen

Short tour of the Langenfelder

I made a short ski tour of an unopened ski run and had a great time making my way back down the small slope before being back the resort. Here's a small clip of that run. The steeper stuff starts at around 3 minutes. Enjoy!
-Owen

Dawn Patrol Hausberg, Dec 10

A little biit of snow

This morning was the best Dawn Patrol I have ever gotten to experience. My alarm went off at around 4:25 and with one look out of the window I was rushing around trying to get my clothes on and heading toward the door with skis and skins already attached in hand. One quick text later to make sure Jeremy was awake and functioning because pulling into the parking lot to find out your partner is still tucked away in bed is a tragedy I try to avoid I ate some breakfast and stepped out into the cold air.
Walking around the garage I was a little disheartened to find my car barrakaded into my parking spot due to a snowplow that had pushed 2ft of packed snow all the way around my car. I swept the 8 or 9 inches of light snow off my car and put in the Suby in gear. Not wanting to waste anytime digging out my car I decided to try just backing up right over the berm a chance and it worked out perfectly. My Subaru surprises me everyday I drive it in the snow.

Skinning past a little cabin

Driving through the town it looked like the snowplows were out in full force but for some reason had yet to plow the entrance road to the hausberg so  the snow got thrown up and over my front bumper like I was snowmobiling all the way into the parking lot. Arriving in the parking lot there was one plow going back and forth as I waited five minutes for Jeremy to arrive and for the tour to get going.
The start of the tour was well groomed until we got to the first major rise and after that it was like braking trail on a powder day but luckily the snow was quite light allowing us to move reasonably fast. We made our way up toward the horn, a run that in the daytime goes right off the top gondola station at the hausberg. We made it just up to the point where the last serious rise started to happened and decided to turn around because Jeremy had work and still needed to take a shower and get some other stuff ready for his day.

Nice turns in anyones book



Just about to the knee

The first turns were just over my boot top and very light. I missed the effortlessness of the turns and really enjoyed each one as we made out way down the nice easy gradient. I haven't skied this good of snow in a long time and was just happy to make any turns at all considering the resort had only been open for 3 days and all of the days have been powder days. After making ten turns we decided to break out the camera just to make the friends jealous and to capture a great time.


Milking all the skiing we could out of the steeper base section we made nice short radius turns all the way to the groomers where we straight lined out and back to the cars that had both gained another two inches on their hoods. Overall this was the best Dawn Patrol I have ever done and so far this year definitely makes the top spot for fun days even though we really only got one run in the turns made it well worth it. Looking out the window right now to see it snowing more and more make me think we might have to do another Dawn Patrol tomorrow morning as well...stay posted!

Ski touring Ehrwald Alm

I got out today with the parents on a nice little tour of some sidecountry that hasn't been opened yet to the public and had a good time skiing some tracked out powder. Hopefully another video coming soon as it is dumping hard outside right now! I got a few shots with the gopro so here is one of the runs!
-Owen