Austria Ski Trip

I haven't had many updates in quite sometime.

  

Since November.....

 

1) I was in the US most of December for scaphoid surgery and to spend time with friends and family.

2) In January, only skied once for a friend's birthday weekend as I was in a cast and was working nonstop.

3) I was in the US all of February for US busy season and to get my cast removed on Feb. 17 (2.5 month after surgery).

...and now it's March...

After returning from the US, I worked one week and then took a week off from work for a ski week in Austria.  This was my first trip to Ski in Austria and I went with Marc, Steve, and Adam and Milena also joined.

As the Americans were to arrive late Saturday in Zurich, I spent Saturday morning with a skiing warm-up in France and took advantage of having a rental car.  This turned out to be an extremely good idea as it was then I discovered that the initial car I was given had a Magnesium roof (not magnetic) that was incompatible with the ski rack the rental company provided.  Prior to picking up the Americans in Zurich, I had to then call the rental company and go to the Geneva airport to exchange cards for an SUV that was automatic (given the risk); please note that its very difficult to find automatic cards in Europe!  Everything worked out and I eventually arrived in Zurich and picked up Steve and Marc at 11 to then drive to Saalbach where we arrived at 4:30a.  The next day we took advantage of the 1:30p half day pass and skied Sunday and Monday.

Saalbach is one of the larger resort systems in Austria and we were able to ski half in two days.  Conditions were alright as the resort's peaks are about 2K meters and we had nice sunny days with the day of driving (Tuesday) where we received a foot of snow!

Kicking off the trip in Saalbach!

Top of Saalbach

Lunch at Saalbach

Following Saalbach, we spent the remainder of our trip in St. Anton; this was a three hour drive towards Switzerland and we skied Wednesday to Saturday. 

Our first day was one of the better ski days I've ever had as it was sunny and we were making fresh tracks in bowls with over 1' of fresh snow!  The 2nd day we received 4" of rain in the city, which translated to snow and no visibility on the mountain.  The 3rd and 4th days we were able to find some fresh tracks while skiing in the sun.

View from the top during 4" rain in the city.

St. Anton is a great ski destination with tons of terrain (we skied less than half), the city has great restaurants, and also one of the best Après ski locations in Europe although definitely not the safest as going to the Krazy Kangaroo requires you to party hard and then need to ski 200m down a mogulled run in the dark.  

Off Piste Crew

Apres Ski

Krazy Kangaroo

All-in-all, we had one or the better weeks of conditions in Europe with the ski conditions and our trip was during the quarter finals of the Champions league so the city was quite lively as we were able to watch one of the greatest soccer comebacks in history (Barca v PSG).

Skiing Bowls

Rare site of both Nitz brothers buried in snow.

It was sad to see the trip come to an end after many wiener schnitzels and aperol spritzes; great trip and was excited to ski with Marc again and have him take advantage of my time abroad.

The Whole Ski Crew in St. Anton