June 25th, 2009 by mat
Normally well into summer by the 25th June, the region above the Dachstein West ski region including the Gosau glacier have had 1.5m of new snow over the last days or two. Whilst most people this time of the year are enjoying that region for the emerald lakes, the lucky few who have made a ski tour today will be enjoying massive powder runs. The Nordkette range above Innsbruck also has new snow today, with a white cover across the peaks.
The Gosau glacier seen in the distance from the Krippenstein Freeride Arena in February – image © ineedsnow.com
June 18th, 2009 by mat
Sometimes new developments create as many problems as they solve. A new lift connection between St Anton am Arlberg and Kappl in Paznauntal is being much discussed in the region. So what do you do on a average morning in St Anton am Arlberg – 20,30,40cm of new snow – where to head. In the past it was pretty obvious – Stuben. But what if St Anton was connected to the Paznaun valley, directly into Kappl and maybe one day on into Ischgl, where then, west or south east? Well the St Anton – Kappl link is the long term project that is under a good deal of discussion in the region right now. With the upgrade of the Rendlbahn well under construction, the natural path south east into the Paznaun valley from St Anton am Arlberg is undergoing a major upgrade. Is the further link into Paznaun and the Kappl ski area on course for the coming years? What region worldwide would be able to compete with the combined St Anton – Ischgl region?
Which way to turn when knee deep in St Anton snow? Stuben or Kappl? - images © ineedsnow.com
A short video of the new Rendlbahn lift under construction and some of the architects impressions of the way it will look:
June 9th, 2009 by mat
Not a Photoshop edit, maybe a dream but genuine all the same – image © ineedsnow.com
Even in my wildly optimistic predictions my son is unlikely to join me glacier skiing this summer. At 37 days old, I am not 100% sure his balance is there yet; the heart and the head yes, but the finer, peripheral details might take a little longer. Equipment is certainly an issue – with my wife on the cusp of labour 38 / 39 days ago I detoured to the local ski shop in Innsbruck in search of skis. I left the shop with the smallest ski goggles you can imagine - the owner of the shop it seems was unable to kit out a child with skis (of indeterminate gender) who was approximately minus 2 days old ????? I left confused but clutching hope and the goggles.
But as of May 3rd 2009, I am now officially a family skier. For years I have offered the best advice I can to families, albeit without first hand knowledge. I always drew a mental picture of what a client and their family needed from a family ski holiday. No resort is perfect but generally ski buses, resort road traffic, après ski, tough slopes, long transfers, treeless slopes and language barriers are generally negatives. Over the past 30 or so years I have learnt to ski, have skied out of season, chased down après ski, taken on some tough skiing and gradually built up a reasonable knowledge base of the ski options that are dotted across the world. I would be mortified if I had ever wrongly sold a ski holiday but until now family skiing was always something based on consideration and judgement rather than experience. That is all set to change now, my next overnight ski holiday is sure to include a son and a wholly new set of values for me. Bring it on! But in many respects I am back to the basics on this one - 39 years old maybe and able to ski the range of terrain here in Innsbruck but in every family aspect I am an absolute novice – it seems I can’t even provide the right equipment. Maybe another trip to the specialist ski shop in Innsbruck is now in order at 37 days (positive) old?
June 3rd, 2009 by mat
rendlbahn built 1974 and with a very 80s logo - image © ineedsnow.com
Built in 1974 the Rendlbahn, St Anton am Arlberg has come to the end of its life and is being replaced by a new system that connects from the heart of St Anton. For 35 years the Rendlbahn has carried skiers and snowboarders to some of the best powder fields in the St Anton ski area. And whilst the iconic yellow cabins have formed a part of St Anton scenery over the decades the time has come to replace the lift.
Valley station 1312m
Top station 2030m
Vertical rise 718m
Route distance 2440m
Max capacity 1300 Persons/hour
Time 12 minutes
Vitally the capacity, speed and age have not kept up with the rest of the St Anton ski region, whilst the most impressive aspect of the new development is the location of the valley lift station of the Rendlbahn that will occupy what is currently the bus terminal in the centre of St Anton. Just as with the relocation of the St Anton train station from the centre of the resort to a location across the river, so the centre of St Anton is going to be shaken up with bus terminal being buried underground and the main lifts hubs of the Galzigbahn and Rendlbahn leaving from the centre of the resort. Work is due to start in June 2009 and should be completed for the start of the 2009/2010 winter.
May 30th, 2009 by mat
The glasses, suit, boots, posture, helmet all say no – image © ineedsnow.com
Having a child skier has really focused my mind over the last 27 days. I think it was the first Josh post that drew a bit of reaction from some snowboarders when I referred to my aspirations for my new hero. Whilst there is a healthy rivalry between skiers and snowboarders I had to throw in some broad aspirational objectives for the life ahead for this immaculate young person. I will go on record as saying that snowboarding has been the greatest thing that has ever happened to skiing in my opinion: it has challenged and revolutionised skiing, brought in huge numbers of new mountain users and is always something to bring a smile to your face when you see them unclipping at the start of a 100m level traverse into powder heaven 
That said there is an off-shoot of snowboarding, a discipline so odd in appearance and flawed in both equipment and execution (on piste only!), that whilst I would not go as far as advocating an outright ban, although maybe lift passes should possibly be restricted ( ), the sport certainly represents a line in the sand. As Walter Sobchak elaborated to the Dude “I’m talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT…”, Josh these words are for your ears son.
May 23rd, 2009 by mat
With a top height of 3250m the Hintertux Glacier is still offering great skiing conditions with blue skies and plenty of snow today. I spent much of the day capturing images and film in the terrain park as well as chasing a ski ballerina – I thought this discipline was long extinct but there he was, a guy in his 60s, resplendent in his one piece suit and glacier glasses performing some staggering tricks on skis. I will edit the video from today as soon as possible and see if I captured any of his moves on film.
There was a great display of freestyle skiing and snowboarding today on the Hintertux Glacier.
Big air Hintertux style – image © ineedsnow.com
The top station of the Hintertux Glacier is located at 3250m ensuring great snow conditions into early summer and from autumn onwards. The Hintertux Glacier actually offers skiing throughout the year.
The Hintertux Glacier top lift station – image © ineedsnow.com
And the viewing platform above the lift station – image © ineedsnow.com
I managed to ride with Matt from the USA again today before he heads over to Vienna and then back to the mid west.
Air Matt – image © ineedsnow.com
May 21st, 2009 by mat
Warm weather across the Tirol the last few days produced soft snow on the Stubai Glacier today and whilst the skiing was heavy later in the day, the snow pack up there is still something to behold – over 3m with May drawing to a close. Morning skiing on the glacier is superb with Firn snow offering effortless carving. Following overnight freezing the surface of the glacier is often hard and icy for the first couple of runs and then as the surface melts a wonderful melted depth of granular snow develops. Today I made a few turns with a blogger from Minneapolis, USA – Matt flew into Vienna last night and was on the snow this morning – highly committed! And for those who form stereotypes get this – I, the European had Ribs and chips for lunch and no beer, Matt from the USA took a salad and a beer.
Protective thermal / reflective blankets shield the south facing areas of the Stubai Glacier during the summer months – image © ineedsnow.com
The Stubai Glacier offers year round skiing and snowboarding one of the few places in the Alps to offer this. Remedial work was ongoing this week to protect some of the more exposed and higher areas of the Stubai Glacier from melting due to strong sun and warmer temperatures. The glacier deploys reflective thermal blankets at the upper reaches of the glacier, particularly on the south facing areas in order to preserve a thickness of the glacier that will over time feed the lower areas of the glacier. The north facing side of the Stubai Glacier that comprises the biggest ski area on the Stubai Glacier is open all summer down to the Eisgrat lift station. One thing I would be confident of, there will be one or two more powder days on the Stubai Glacier before mid summer sets in, there always is.
May 19th, 2009 by mat
- freestyle josh
OK, so after being badgered into hosting more pictures of my new son Josh, here is one from the weekend. I tried to get him in his helmet for about 30 minutes and all I got was tears, it seems he didn’t like the Donald Duck sticker on it. Anyway back to more normal pursuits in the coming days with a couple of trips to the local glaciers.
May 4th, 2009 by mat
Josh Benjamin Brown - 3rd May 2009, Innsbruck, Austria - skier
As a child in maybe 1977 I remember the life changing experience of clipping into plate bindings and pointing skis down the dry slope at Rossendale dry ski slope – I can say without bravado that things have never quite been the same since – the smell of Toko wax still sends me wild with excitement just at it did 30 years ago. A couple of years after my time on Rossendale and down in Gloucester I bought a pair of ski poles so I could practice the racing tuck position in my bedroom. Near death experiences followed with the sub-zero temperatures and rock strewn pistes across the Scottish highlands. Then came Ellmau - February sunshine, skiing through farm yards and exposure to a ski culture that left me mesmerised and has captivated me ever since.
Some 20 years ago all that mattered to me was the next swell and the hope that our Cornish beach party had finished in time to get straight enough to paddle my surf board into glassy dawn waves. Some more years out of the mountains followed in Australia and New Zealand, which were also dominated by water sports, mainly canoeing and diving. Then followed a year in Whistler-Blackcomb and Vancouver - the over-riding emotion from British Columbia, Canada was never again; never can I go so long again without snow underfoot. 9 Innsbruck winters later and I have stayed true to this commitment. Work has absolutely dominated the last couple of years, sadly at times very much at the expense of other quality of life pursuits. And now the biggest, best, most life changing experience of them all – Josh Benjamin Brown, born 3rd May 2009, Innsbruck, Austria. He is healthy, wonderful and he is a skier. Until the time he can say no to its dad, he is a skier, Josh Benjamin Brown was born to ski; I just live in hope that I never hear the word snowboard coming from my new hero:)
April 28th, 2009 by mat
Like the early days of Hewlett-Packard - image © ineedsnow.com
Many of the lifts are now closed over here in Innsbruck although there are a few ski regions that are still open including Ischgl which will be hosting a Kylie concert at the start of May. The glaciers over here are in absolutely superb shape. We had clients recently at the Stubai Glacier and they described the conditions as the best they had ever experienced. For me it is a short break between the end of the season, some glacier skiing and the start of planning for the coming winter. Plans that are currently a bit on hold as I await the arrival of my first child – currently 6 days overdue. The current names in the hat are Franz Bode Brown for a boy and Renate Brown for a girl. During the wait I am designing some new camera accessories that I intend to utilise in the filming of the ski areas over the next year. There are some great online resources that I am currently modifying to fits our needs, I am really hoping for some great results from the new gear.
April 23rd, 2009 by mat
OK, a few quotes of the winter and noting that one complaining blog user prefers pictures to words then there is a fair chance that this theme will get an easier ride
One of my favourite hotels in Austria is the Hotel Mondschein. This was from Finbar about the 20th year anniversary of a group of French skiers driving past almost every ski resort of significance to get to the Hotel Mondschein, Stuben am Arlberg:
“This is no Holiday Inn, this is the real Austrian experience. I could describe in detail, but actions speak louder than words, so how’s this? There was a party of a dozen hard core French off-piste skiers from Toulouse. Yes, they crossed a lot of alps to get to the Monschien and Stuben, but get this,… for the twentieth time! Enough said.”
April 20th, 2009 by mat
There have been rumblings of disquiet regarding the look back at some of the images from the 08 / 09 winter. More precisely the blog entries have been compared to a re-run of MASH in terms of allure. Apologies for that, although I would quote the wordsmith Pat Butcher in this case “bit ‘arsh innit?” Ever one to keep the blog readers happy I will draw this theme to a close with three images that I think are worthy of a show. One I took and the other 2 were the work of a skiing obsessed Swede. I have to confess that he has the beating of my image in my opinion but I will let all you MASH fans be the final judge of that.
Ok, firstly the images taken by Petteri Koste. I was at Axamer Lizum, Innsbruck the same day as Petteri but whilst he took a series of shots that I rate as some of the very best I have seen, I moved between a plate of spare ribs and a few powder routes. You can find more of these at Petteris’ youtube channel.
© www.snurt.se
…and another great shot from a great day…
© www.snurt.se
…..and one last one of mine, from a few weeks ago in Stuben (so no “already seen that” complaints please)
I did those – image © ineedsnow.com
April 19th, 2009 by mat
For anyone else ruing the end of another winter season there is some solace - autumn glacier skiing. Why wait until Christmas to start skiing again - this picture was taken on the 5th October 2008, with great powder skiing on offer after several days of snow. The crowds were really absent as well making for a really sensational day of powder at the Stubai Glacier.
Powder the first week in October – image © ineedsnow.com
April 18th, 2009 by mat
Finkenberg, December 08 looking pretty special. This was a mighty cold day in a very cold winter and the Zillertal was completely dumped on. The lifts were still closed as it was November but there were ski tourers up in the mountains who had sensational skiing.
Mayrhofen, just down the valley also had great conditions.
Deep December snow, Finkenberg – image © ineedsnow.com
April 17th, 2009 by mat
Guides are absolutely essential - image © ineedsnow.com
I skied the Krippenstein Freeride Arena back in January in really atmospheric conditions. The skies were heavy and the views down to the lake were something special. This shot was of the local guide and a couple of the group on one of the off-piste routes from the main Krippenstein area down to the mid-station above Obertraun. This was serious terrain and a guide is an absolute must, be also if you are a keen skier or snowboarder then the Krippenstein Freeride Arena is also and absolute must.
