Day 5 – Too Much Of A Good Thing

Today’s Blog Entry

On Wednesday there was a true blizzard with heavy snows and windy conditions throughout the day. The snow started around breakfast time and before it was over (about 24 hours later) we had about two feet of powder in the village and much more in the surrounding mountains. The snow was so deep that the mountain passes were closed due to avalanche danger – this affected the trains, buses, and even some of the cross-country ski trails that we’d hoped to explore during our stay.

You can’t let a little snow mess up a ski trip, so we caught the bus for Leutasch mid-morning (in theory before the snow got too deep) and headed out to do some skiing along the valley floor near Leutasch. The plan was to head in the opposite direction vs. Sunday, i.e southwest towards Moos and Buchen, and stop for a traditional lunch at one of the mountain huts along the way. It was an ambitious plan in terms of distance, but the terrain looked reasonable and we were up for the challenge.

What we found after we cleared the relative protection of the trees around Leutasch was that the wind caused the groomed ski tracks to drift over and become nearly impossible to use. The tracks make classic style cross-country skiing relatively easy, but without them it’s hard to keep your skis in line – it feels almost like walking on ice with your feet going sideways as often as forward. Our one hope was to fall in step behind one of the Pisten Bullies that was grooming the tracks (even in the middle of the storm!). A Pisten Bully did finally come along, but we found that even those fresh tracks would fill in almost immediately.

Skiing in these conditions was pretty much like work, so after a couple of hours we gave up and skied back into Leutasch for an early lunch at the Cafe Dohlenpic. We’d eaten there before on Sunday and enjoyed the fare as well as the husband and wife team that ran the place. It should be noted that most of the restaurants we visited this trip, including the Dohlenpic, have apparently not received the memo about no smoking in public places so our ski apparel is definitely headed for the dry cleaners …

After lunch we rode the bus back to Seefeld with some Aussies that were preparing for senior-level cross-country ski races to be held at Seefeld in the March timeframe. Even though this was the fifth day of our trip these were the first (and maybe the only) native English-speaking folks that we ran into during our time in Seefeld. This language gap was reinforced by the lack of any English programming on the apartment’s cable TV other than CNN World News and BBC News. That said, we found most everyone to speak at least passable English and to be very welcoming towards us. 

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