A freeride weekend at Obertauern

As a last minute decision I joined a guided freeride course at Obertauern. Friday morning I met with Georg at Leoben where I left my car. To get a feeling for the snow we tried to ski half-day at Praebichl. Unfortunately all the chairlifts were closed because of the bad weather conditions (foggy, strong breeze). So we decided to continue our way and to try one of the skiing regions in the Schladming area. Finally we skied for two and a half hours at Haus/Ennstal. Oddly enough we had sunshine there. After a short stop at the après ski disco for a Radler we continued our way to Radstadt (countryside Salzburg) where we resided (due to the fact that Obertauern is fully booked at this time of the year).

At our Hotel we shared an apartment with our alpine guide Werner who brought also our equipment. We received lightweight downhill skis with an alpine touring binding, skins, an avalanche tranceiver (variously called 'peeps'), an avalanche shovel, a portable probe as well as an avalanche airbag. Mounted in this way we awaited the next day.

On the next morning we had serious weather problems. It had already snowed for the whole night and now it became obligatory to assemble tyre chains. Alas we hadn't any. Nevertheless we did the summit and started our powder adventure. Up the hill and in we went. (Although our guide unintended showed us how the avalanche airbag works :-).) It snowed the whole day and the visibility wasn't the best but going downhill in aprox. more than 2 meter fresh snow was great fun. In the evening I felt smashed but sober.

On sunday the weather even got worse. The avalanche risk rised to 4 (high). The visibility was bad. Thus for we tried some variants through woodland. Then we had lunch early enough to see an Austrian win a gold medal at the FIS Alpine World Championships. The whole hut cheered. And now the sun broke through the clouds.

At that moment it became great. Virgin powder snow, sun and a great view of the mountains. Our souls shouted for joy.
Quarter past four we completed a great skiing day.

Around 9 pm I returned to Vienna. What a terrific weekend!