48 hours of London was definitely enough time to recover from a 6 month holiday so off I set again for another week's holiday, skiing in Austria. As you do. Given that in my 3 foot high pile of mail there had even a small cheque from the taxman, it was hard to believe that I wasn't dreaming.
The plane touched down in Zurich and we were informed by the captain that the temperature was 20C outside. Not exactly optimal for skiing. This caused considerable consternation amongst the non-friends of mine. Was there going to be any snow? We, of course, knew better.
In Lech itself it was still a good 10 degrees above zero. It was barely below at the top. Still, skiing on ice cream is better than not skiing at all and it was wonderfully sunny. Sun cream was not, however, necessary for those recently arrived from the tropics and I was even able to increase the tan a little. The snow on the north facing slopes was actually quite nice.
Plenty of snow here and nobody else to crowd the runs. Look how immensely pleased Ed is to have placed the world's largest V-sign above my naive head!
On the southern slopes it was a bit different...
Grass skiing is alive and well in Austria.
And not much snow even near the top. However, that sky almost makes up.
We had two more days of this lovely weather, which meant that afternoons were better spent drinking beer on the sun terraces than skiing. Disaster. However, after much mocking and doubt from friends and family, I finally delivered.
First sign of a change...
I am now an expert on what happens next when you see this.
Typically, this front rolled in on the same day we had decided to spend the afternoon enjoying some beers at the very highest bar. It had been T-shirt weather previously, but fronts are normally associated with winds and this was no exception.
Whilst we were bringing a whole new meaning to the term ice-beer, both myself and Ian, a mate from uni who was also on the trip with us, began to feel rather rough. By the time we were down at the hotel we were both wondering what we had had for lunch and within an hour, in case we had forgotten, we were vividly reminded.
Unbelievably, I had not been ill once in any way throughout all the countries I had been through in the past 7 months. I had drunk the tapwater, eaten at the crappest restaurants and always ordered the local speciality. Yet, here I was in ultra-clean Austria with all the symptoms of food-poisoning. This was alarming for the rest of the group, who had all eaten the same thing for lunch! However, when we finally got round to summoning a doctor, he confirmed that it was not food poisoning. Everybody else was relieved. Instead, he diagnosed a contagious form of gastroenteritis. The relief was short-lived!
Fortunately, these things clear up fairly rapidly and the doctor gave us some excellent medicines that cured the worst symptoms virtually instantly. [Why oh why did I wait 8 hours before getting the doctor?]. It snowed manically all throughout the next day so being forced to sit in bed all day wasn't actually too bad and it was even quite amusing to watch CNN's coverage of the Gulf War Mk II. Very reminiscent of that most excellent spoof: The Day Today.
There was now some 40cm of powder on the ground which was still being added to. Lech is an outstandingly posh resort and it was clear that few people lower themselves to skiing when the weather has set in. This meant that though visibility was maybe sub-optimal [an understatement] we had the slopes to ourselves and it was almost preferable that way round. Alas, having done all my skiing in late March/early April I have little experience in powder snow but I love a challenge and wiping out in the soft stuff is surprisingly enjoyable.
It's Scott of the Antarctic.
Hmmm, I wonder which way it is to the bottom.
These sort of conditions are excellent for one's technique as when you cannot tell whether the ground underneath you is going up or down, then you are forced to keep your knees flexible and ride out the bumps. Indeed, there were times when the only way of ascertaining the fall-line of the slope was to see in which direction one accelerated most rapidly. This led to several farcical moments, perhaps the best being from Ian. We were attempting to make a traverse between 2 areas and thus avoid a crappy T-bar lift. It was a route we had done many times before, but as it was unmarked and you could no longer see the end, it was somewhat tougher today. We had stopped to debate various routes when Ian claimed to have spotted some other people's tracks, and whilst uttering the prescient line "plenty of people have been over there" he promptly vanished vertically into a hollow. Indeed, plenty of people had gone over here. Luckily, an 8 foot plunge is acceptable when the landing is soft and no harm was done.
Wipeouts continued to be numerous throughout the day, with me proving to be particulalry adept at the face plant. Well, I was always told to keep my weight forwards by my instructors so I must have been doing something right.
Ed emerged still smiling after his duel with the Tippex monster. And look! Visibility is improving markedly.
Believe it or not, this is taken from the exact same place as the small one above.
And this is the same chair as featured above with the blue sky. Not a bad change in 48 hours.
It finally stopped snowing overnight and the final two days were blessed with fantastic sun and cool-ish temperatures, which meant that the snow didn't fare too badly on the more shaded slopes. Alas, this weather also tempted out everybody else and so you had to work to find some untouched powder fields.
Lech is a very pretty village having existed for many years before skiing became fashionable. I am a particualar fan of that conical mountain that overlooks the town.
The Muggengrat. At 2,450m this bit is the highest part of Lech and if you get there early the powder is fantastic. North-facing too.
Alas, most people know this and so it gets skied out fairly rapidly. Any of those aesthetically pleasing 'S' paths left by the skiers that end in a sudden hollow are probably made by me.
The excellent conditions meant that the pistes were also in top shape for serious speed. Having been groomed overnight. My altimeter has an excellent little function where it gives you your vertical ascent/descent rate, although sadly only averaged over the last 30 seconds. Being boys, we decided that on the last run we had to see what sort of vertical descent we could manage and, with eye-watering being the limiting factor, achieved a max of 378m/min. As someone currently teaching maths, I ought to be able to do the trigonometry and if we assume a slope of 15 degrees (it was only a red run) then I make that about 55mph, which is quite pleasing. Remember that this is an average over 30 seconds. A pint of beer for anyone who can beat that - I wil lend you the device.
And now it really was all over. A huge thank you to mum and dad for inviting me out on the trip and the powers that be had even moved the Boat Race onto a Sunday so that I wouldn't miss it. [However, after watching the Filth's nailbiting victory, I wish they hadn't moved it.] My bank balance is now being preceded by minus signs and so the exotic travelling has to be put on the back burner for now. I'll be back...
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