July 15th, 2009 by mat
One man’s spam is another man’s ham maybe, but how does this pan out when one of the best off-piste ski areas in the Alps gets an improved lift? What happens when an existing ski lift is replaced with a higher capacity lift or terrain previously only accessible on touring skis receives a new lift? A couple of seasons ago my local ski hill in Innsbruck had 2 new gondolas installed. The Mutters and Gotzens ski areas had for several years existed as the preserve for ski tourers, the old lifts had been de-commissioned and the only way up was either on skins or via some routes out of Axamer Lizum. For several years I effectively skied a private ski piste, you would rarely see any other skier on a descent and just a couple making their way up on skins. The arrival of the new lifts brought mixed emotions. Snow cannons, piste markers and numerous piste users replaced the serenity of the area but whilst the negative aspects of this development were clear, the boost to the local area and the joy (yes genuine) at seeing others on the slopes to appreciate the superb terrain and views outweighed all other aspects for me. What must the locals of St Anton be currently thinking? For years the Rendl side of the St Anton ski region was underused and remained a locals’ hangout. For obvious reasons the lift company has invested heavily to increase the convenience and capacity of the lift accessing the Rendl ski region. Mixed emotions for sure with more competition for the famed Rendl powder routes. But St Anton locals, whatever they do are reliant on visitors and to make the visitor experience better can only benefit them and their standard of livings. And remember, at one point in time a lift didn’t exist, what would the previous users of the Rendl have thought when the lift pylons went up for the first time?
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 14th, 2009 by mat
So as the season winds down (unless you are thinking of taking advantage of some of the outstanding glacier skiing that is on offer or plan to ski tour into any of the medium high ski areas that will be great for another month or so) then I thought about a ski photo series to accompany the closing lifts would be worth doing. First up then is a picture courtesy of Finbar over in Donegal, Ireland who had a near miss with an avalanche. This crossed moments before his group were set to ski this section of the piste. An avalanche team were on the scene in seconds with a rescue dog bounding down the piste but luckily nobody was caught.
View from inside the rescue pisten bully – image © Finbar / ineedsnow.com
Remember that all the glacier ski areas will be open long into what we think is the summer, the Arlberg and Ischgl will stay open until the end of April / start of May. Even of you miss the end of the season, the glacier skiing in the Tirol starts in October – I managed to get some great powder skiing under my belt on the 5th October last year. Endless winter – almost!