Whilst my Thunderbuddy was playing around in the mountains of Lebanon, which i'm not jealous of, i had a quite nice middle of March experience myself. First riding and filming in Arlberg with some friends I had not seen for a long time. Followed by a stunning splitboard tour with my old time riding buddy Pauli.
But to tell the whole story we have to go back in time.
It all started off with a look at the snow-forecast, making a phone call, followed by a quick decision that i'm going to Arlberg. Joining some good friend's for a film project called ''Moving Mountain'' and the quest for the fresh was my intention. So I packed up the car with 4 beauty's in the back and left really early in the morning.
Welcomed by heavy rain at the Sonnenkopf- bahn the mission to make a short movie in 2 days was on. Luckily the rain turned slowly into snow on the way up but was still quite wet around 1800 meters. Forced by visibility we stuck at that height and we started the filming in the tree line.
After hours of filming, hiking, and riding in wet snow/rain even the best Gore Tex jacket was put to the elements, and by the end of the day we were soaked to the bones. Our goggles looked like little aquariums filling up with water.
The sleep on the floor was more relaxing than I was expecting and the blue bird outside wiped away the last sleep in my eyes. We tried to be there first gondola to make the most out of the sunny day and continue shooting. But so did every one else and the queue at the gondola was massive.
We had an Avalanche danger 4 with all the wind and new snowfall, but up on the mountain it seemed that a a lot of the freeriders left their brains at home. Watching them riding quite steep lines just put a big question mark on my face. Live to ride another day guys, always check the avalanche report and have the correct equipment and #NoPowderdayWithoutFriends!
We stayed in ''safer'' terrain, found some nice powder runs and finished the day with a big smile at the parking spot.
Thx a million for the nice time dudes!!!
Because we are made for the fresh....
There was no other option as to go on a tour higher up the next day. So the ''Weißsee Glacier'' was a logical solution. Another phone call was made and Fortuna was on my side as an old time riding buddy agreed to the tour. Aware of the Avalanche danger and the wind we had a few options up our sleeves, but did not want to decide until we had seen the local conditions. Quite tricky to plan a safe tour when it is actually not that safe.
So we packed our brains and a good portion of intuition and started the hike after taking the gondola up.
And again mother nature blessed us with beautiful weather, snow and view. The surrounding mountains where stunning and on the way up it was soon clear, that it was safe enough to make our way up to the Granatspitze. The whole tour was average in distance and high meters so we took our time to spot more lines for another day and a possible mountaineering camp. Really exited about the untouched field and the fluffy snow we strapped the boards on and drew our lines in the virgin north-east face. But the fluffy stuff did not stop after that and we had lots of well deserved face shots on the way down.
Half way we had to stop and fill up the batteries before riding down the second half. Completely overwhelmed from the awesome ride down, we enjoyed some food and dreamt about the feeling of the last few turns. After getting our stuff together we continued the descent. Tired but happy about the beautiful day we finally arrived at the car where we enjoyed a fresh ''Golden Radler '' in the last sunbeams.
There is still some fresh out there, so winter is far away from being over!!!!
Love&Peace
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