Arlberg free-ride with a kid from NYC

Wonderful Arlberg trip : St. Anton-Warth added this time to Lech-Zurs, returning first time since our original visit in 2009, and the skier (from New York City) was 6 years old then, and we posted that video on this forum. Now 9 years later, skier is 15 and takes you, those who love mountains, snow, the adrenaline of danger and beauty and skiing terrain off-piste, on the ride with him as he filmed almost all of this on chest-mounted GoPro III.

The Valluga entry is something else (Can't go up to that highest needlepoint in the sky with skis without a guide !). Great guides Manfred, Andreas and Franz (of WhiteGuides.com is where you can find them) shepherded us, especially 15 year old, safely, in all conditions, whiteout fog, blizzards with gale force winds, and bluebird skies. We were connected to them by our friend Klaus Mair , founder of SofaSkiSchool for those who know. Only thing that sort of was in the back of cameraman's (the 15 year old) mind often enough was the omnipresent avalanche danger..it's foreboding in beautiful pristine terrain. Enjoy, "It's one hell of a ride !"

Very cool. Thanks for sharing that!

From all the footage collected by the 15 yo, here is a clip of just the legendary Valluga West free ride.

On that day, skier and guide only saw 3 other skiers and just their tracks. It was bluebird day after a day of gale force winds and blizzard conditions. This is the full ride from the top of the Valluga to Zurs. You can see and feel how the awesome intimidation factor at the top, tired out the 15 yo having little experience in such snow conditions and the exposure is a mind-freeze-o-rama ! He was cautious, regrouped and made his way down, and it's thin up there ! He had just skied off-piste from Zurs via the Monzabon with one lift in the middle, all the way to TrittAlp and as warm-up we can only guess, Manfred the guide had him go down the larger of the Schindlergrat Rechls Rinne (Couloir in German basically) and the deep powder fields below it to the Valfagehr Red run.

It was only 115pm when we left Valluga I restaurant after a Twix bar and Almdudler for the mini-cable car for skiers with guides only (and tourists w/o skis). You are invited to watch the rest. You will see how fatigued the young lad was from the tension and uber-tight race boots (a mistake not to be repeated in the future when free-riding), in the top couloir. The traverse to the couloir is "No-fall-zone" central, and that means , you fall, you don't come back other than in a body-bag pretty much, as it's a relatively short 150 ft sheer vertical drop on the NE corner to a cliff and sayonara there, and the south face is a cliff and then literally vertical, take a look, the sat-maps give you some idea !-)

It's mentally exhausting, but then you see him get his mojo back. And the terrain is a lot steeper than it looks on a chest-mounted GoPro, and it is simply Magnificent Terrain, with the foreboding of omnipresent avalanche danger.

Actions of the guide with his charge, confidence in his young client comes through, you will the gaps are huge, (avy-risk tactics). In particular, the little chuckle-chit-chat at the one point in the traverse around the top radio-cellular station, where the 15 yo must have been thinking "I've got to get the hell out of here!", you can hear it when he is done with that part. Mani actually stopped to fix his buckles and pant-cuffs there too, edited out, it's gallows humor watching it. What a great guide and what a ride , to paraphrase another "It's one hell of a ride" , Enjoy for those who do not know this terrain and those who have been there ...