Unofficial J2ski trip to St Anton updated with photos

This mornings update with a link to the photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58720150@N06/show/

I flew back in from Innsbruck early this morning, and as a result I'm shattered and won't be up to writing much tonight. Big up to Austrian Arrows for being superbly efficient and providing the most generous legroom I have had across Europe.

However, just to let you know that we had a fantastic week of skiing across St Anton, Stuben and Zurs during which time I reckon we experienced every possible kind of weather, sometimes all in 1 day: hot sun, slush, ice, minus 15, thick fog, wind, flat light, boiler plate pistes, perfect pistes, thick powder, porridge, sugar, everything except rain I think.

The majority of the group had a full on week. Unfortunately Wickers knee injury got the better of him and I only managed to ski 2 half days with him before he had to pack it in.
We were haring around late on Monday morning when Wickers pulled up and said "I'm going to have to quit boys and girls". His knee was too painful and restricting his ability to turn, and on busy hard packed pistes that day he was clearly struggling and upset.
He travelled back with with us this morning and says it feels better, but he was gutted that it prevented him exploring the ski area around St Anton.

I was lucky enough to ski most days with Mrs W however, who is a very good skier, and one of these who does not understand how good she actually is. She did say she'd skied far more than she normally would skiing with us this week, and that she also skied some things she would never have considered, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience she said. A lovely lady.

It was brilliant to ski with my mate Ellistine again, and he has managed to collect some fantastic footage and images on his GoPro. We managed helmet cam, pole cam, chest cam, wrist cam, beer cam, nose picking cam, and one or two other suggestions that were dismissed as inappropriate. I'll try and get hold of some of the footage and post on here soon, but I'm relying on Ellistine to allow me access to the footage.

Skidaddle also skied himself silly, and only had one morning off to ski with his other half, who spent pretty much the rest of the time skiing the local blue runs in St Christoph along with Stewart Dowling and his other half. Sadly, I was not able to ski a single run with Stewart for a number of reasons. There was a day we all planned to go to Zurs, after our group hit it hard one day and found some lovely easy slopes e felt they would really enjoy, but the packed ski bus drove straight past that morning, and we were starting to waste ski time, so we decided to split and head up into St Anton again rather than wait around another hour just to get transport. Stewart's posse got a taxi round to Zurs later on and had a couple of hours over there, and loved it.

Another day visibility was so poor that some simply refused to go out, and even 2 of our group knocked it on the head after the first run! Fortunately, a bit of exploring around the valley and we found a mountain with good visibility and about 30cm of fresh powder (Gampen) and had a memorable morning. We were down to a hardcore of 3 by this time, out of a possible 12 that travelled!

I've got some cracking photos, some of which I will post on here tomorrow when I get a chance. It was great to ski in such great conditions, albeit very changeable. You'd go from one end of the area where it was bitterly cold and you were going up chair lifts with blankets over your knees, to the other end where you were sweating buckets and skiing through what felt like sugar. All within an hour or so. And the next day it would all be totally different again.

St Anton confirmed for me what I already knew, and what the lesser experienced in our party discovered: that its a difficult and hard ski area for less experienced skiers, and anyone considering going to this area should be comfortable skiing on steep slopes in huge crowds at times, with a lot of people skiing like complete clowns at top speed whilst taking a main route around the area. We actually found ourselves avoiding areas which got crowded, or skiing them at certain times of the day only. For example, blue 4 and blue 1 are the main routes off from Galzig and Gampen down into St Anton in the valley, and its actualy a breathtaking run to do from top to bottom, but after about 11am its cut to hell, moguls in many tight spots, and you find yourself simply concentrating on avoiding other people. Its manageable, but its hardly enjoyable. Thats why we tended to hit that run first thing in the morning, or over lunchtime when many people had stopped, and also head up to the highest points away from it all, such as Schindler, Stuben, Zurs, Rendl.

Its been 3 years since I visited St Anton for the first time, and I thoroughly enjoyed skiing it again and seeing other parts I didn't ski last time, but I think I've done it now. AND its just soooooooo busy. We found ourselves on ski routes, off piste, and generally heading out to the extremities in order to have snow to ourselves, or with much fewer people anyway.

I'll post some details about the areas tomorrow with photos, but some of the best skiing IMO is found on Rendl, over at Stuben and round at Zurs. We didn't make it to Lech as we simply couldn't be bothered to waste skiing time travelling on buses and in taxis.

St Anton has stunning scenery, high peaks, good snow for Austria (especially in March), and some absolutely fantastic pisted runs. It also had massive amounts of off piste, and we were blessed by the snow gods so that we were able to have several days of skiing fresh tracks. Oh yes, and one or two lively bars as well.

More to come.
Good to be back in some ways, horrible to think thats this season done for me personally.

Sounds like you had a great time. Really sorry to hear about Mr w.

However, I have one question.

Did you make it to the moose?

Iceman wrote:Sounds like you had a great time. Really sorry to hear about Mr w.

However, I have one question.

Did you make it to the moose?

Well many of us skied past the Moos several times a day, but on the nights we decided to apres in St Anton, we went into town in order to meet those who were not up to the task of skiing down there, and had beers in Scotty's Bar. So as a group, no.

We also found a much better place nearby on the slopes that we used for lunch and beer stops. Best Grostl I've ever had.

Wickers didn't really seem too bothered, and by the time we had the chance to do it together, his knee had gone.

I'm glad you had a good time Tony :D

But I do feel very sorry for Stewart and his gang, and poor Ian :cry:

Did Stewart buy new boots??

AllyG wrote:I'm glad you had a good time Tony :D

But I do feel very sorry for Stewart and his gang, and poor Ian :cry:

I think anyone would feel sorry for Ian with his injury.

Iceman wrote:Did Stewart buy new boots??

No. He was in his old boots all week and said they were fine.

Injury ruining skiing is the worse thing ever. I have had it just once and it was really annoying.

Saved Stewart some money then dud nit realise there were so many j2 there

Hopefully you get some vids