Skiing conditions - weekend 4/5.Mar.2006

Am thinking about hitting the slopes tomorrow at Westendorf but I see the snow is gonna be even heavier and weather colder tomorrow...

Was it any fun out there today??

A friend went skiing today, haven't a clue where, but he said it was a complete whiteout. Not good!

Mmmmm, moguls in whiteout conditions, lovely. Teaches you to keep your knees loose.

A group of 4 of us are taking the SportScheck bus to Westendorf tomorrow. In ~7.5 hours ish really. The best forecast i can get says viz is pretty shitty, especially for the morning, but that there will be extended patches of clear skies in the afternoon. Sod it, with this much powder got to be worth a go..

the SportScheck bus took 5 hours each way saturday to Gastein, too much traffic and snow

We went skiing today - was excellent. A bit dangerous on the roads this morning, so we just went to Oberamergau which is pretty close. Over 50cm of fresh snow.

Most of the time between boot and thigh deep, but occasionally was over the waist and in the face. Overcast and snowing most of the day, however the light was good and there was no visibility problems and no wind either.

Few pics of the day below.

Little bit off piste, this was nice and light and deep.. face shot
[img]http://www.andrewhutchinson.net/DSC04761.JPG[/img]

Some parts pretty chopped up, but still over my boots
[img]http://www.andrewhutchinson.net/DSC04757.JPG[/img]

A little left on the sides at least
[img]http://www.andrewhutchinson.net/DSC04758.JPG[/img]

[img]http://www.andrewhutchinson.net/DSC04760.JPG[/img]

Well Westendorf was great. One of the best days (if not the best day) of the season so far. There is loads of Powder; the Piste basically rides like off-piste and very few people. The bus made it back in record time as well. I think a lot of people got put off by bad reports for the W/E. If anybody who is not working is toying with the idea of going tomorrow then go for it. the avalanche danger is pretty high at the moment though so inviting as a lot of it looked apart from the occasional Abseits run through the powder fields we stuck to the Piste. I usually see Piste markers of a way of hearding the cattle into a nice little channel keeping the Off-Piste free for some real boarding, but today the Piste was as good as it gets..
I just bought an avalanche Rucksack from Karstadt Sport T-Wiesen for €400, which makes me feel a bit better. Think this is a good price. If anybody else wants one then get down there as they still have a couple available (on display at €500, down from €700 - they need to sell so haggle).

Saw these knob-ends in downtown Großhadern today, so I had to take a piccie. I'd just pressed the button on my digicam and one skier fell over in the delay time between the pressing and the taking.

[attachment=20298:attachment]

Still, you gotta laugh.

Skiing was good yesterday - lots of powder and it was snowing very hard. However, total whiteout. It was like skiing blind - almost zero visibility. Had to remain loose and knees bent to avoid falls (although, the falls were soft).