Ski Arlberg

[toast21602]

Awesome. Looking forward to this thread continuing! 

[eaf]

The mountains are magnificent. Once off the base, there's no coming back, nor there is a need to. You roam from lift to lift, over the peaks and sidewise, no roads in sight, only random restaurants scattered around the mountains.

[eaf]

The place where I was hoping to rent Kastles has really let me down. Turned out to be a very pro-Atomic store, all sorts of SL, GS, doubledeckers and the line that came to replace doubledeckers this year with a rod on top. Hardly any wide skis here. Everybody is skiing piste, and the piste becomes a real shit on steep parts by 3pm. The freeride tracks are there, but I haven't seen anybody going off trail today.

Here's a nice pic with both Atomics and the tracks.

There's no skiing under this lift btw.

[eaf]

Speaking of lifts, who can tell me what's wrong with this one?

Hint: the second photo is a midstation.

[toast21602]

I don't see anything wrong with it. 

[eaf]

3 minutes ago, toast21602 said:

I don't see anything wrong with it. 

If you look closer at first pic, you'll see that cabins are intermixed with chairs. How's that possible?

[toast21602]

1 minute ago, eaf said:

If you look closer at first pic, you'll see that cabins are intermixed with chairs. How's that possible?

Yeah. Chondola. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_lift

[RootDKJ]

Love that lift.

Oh and in the first pic, the people don't have the bubble down.  

Or any pocket beers.

[eaf]

10 minutes ago, toast21602 said:

Yeah. Chondola. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_lift

It's a double lift with midstation. Gondolas ride all the way from bottom to the top, there is no exit in the middle. 

Chairs ride from midstation to the top. People hop on the chairs, and then are injected into the stream of gondolas with a 2:1 ratio. Two chairs after each gondola.

Questionable design because if chairs have to stop, so do the gondolas. 

[eaf]

We skied from 9 to 3 today with a single break for lunch. And hardly could finish one zone near Warth. I don't think there was a trail that we've skied more than 3 times, it's just there are so many of them. By the end of the day you're not really skiing anymore because of how tired you're. It's dangerous skiing tired by itself, but when most difficult parts turn into moguls, it's even worse. And then you may need a ride in this...

[Shadows]

Random restaurants strewn about lol. We got smoke shacks.

 

[indiggio]

I want to go there!!

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice eef you ski any terrain that made you nervous??

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

2 hours ago, indiggio said:

I want to go there!!

Indiggio we need to do a PASR Europe trip.  I've only been to Europe in the summer.  Maybe Matt Edge and Salty will let us tag along on their trip to Verbier in 2019

[eaf]

Well, it hasn't snowed since last Thursday, and that shows. Positive temperatures during the day and freezing ones at night produce hard and frozen corduroy at the bottom of the mountain. Within an hour it softens up, but waiting is counterproductive, for by 1pm moguls form on many trails, and skiing becomes unpleasant. Mountain works 9-4:30. It seems that red and black trails do better in the afternoon because less people go on them, but steep parts of blue trails become real shit.

We argue a LOT among ourselves, it's just hard to make people get down to the car in time in the mornings! "This is a vacation" - they moan. Yeah right!

[eaf]

We did the White Circle today. It's a set of trails and lifts that connect Kech, Zurs and Zug in a big circle. Took us 45 minutes to get out of our zone to Lech and then 3.5 hours to do the circle. Views were breathtaking, trails not very much so because a lot of people apparently choose to roam them, and one can even time himself on how fast he can complete the circle, and post results online.

This circle is the first time where I've seen lift lines here. It was closed last week until Friday due to the passed storm and wind. Even today one lift wasn't too comfortable to sit on due to strong head wind.

[eaf]

Today's lifts took a dive down. Yesterday it was all Hi-Tech, today it's this...

[eaf]

Restaurants sometimes have a view to die for. Sometimes they even make the view.

[eaf]

I can understand now why Warth is a cheaper place to live in. It's remote (45 mins to cross local ski area), it doesn't have enough lodging in the walking distance, and it's just not so picturesque. As much as I like our current apartment (two bedrooms,  bathrooms, kitchen and a living room), next time I'll probably choose to stay in Lech. Houses overlooking the river, lifts are right there, and overall it's much better connected.

[toast21602]

Looks really good. Glad you’re enjoying your trip!


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[eaf]

5 minutes ago, toast21602 said:

Looks really good. Glad you’re enjoying your trip!

Well, the weather is good so far, but the forecast for tomorrow calls for clouds, and then we'll have three snow days in a row. I doubt there will be much visibility once it starts falling, but depending on how high the clouds will be, it might be fun to ski around the peaks.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

3 hours ago, eaf said:

Well, it hasn't snowed since last Thursday, and that shows. Positive temperatures during the day and freezing ones at night produce hard and frozen corduroy at the bottom of the mountain. Within an hour it softens up, but waiting is counterproductive, for by 1pm moguls form on many trails, and skiing becomes unpleasant. Mountain works 9-4:30. It seems that red and black trails do better in the afternoon because less people go on them, but steep parts of blue trails become real shit.

We argue a LOT among ourselves, it's just hard to make people get down to the car in time in the mornings! "This is a vacation" - they moan. Yeah right!

Wow that's crazy we had 6 of us ready at 720am on a pow day and 7 of us ready at 740am on the non pow days. 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

3 hours ago, eaf said:

Well, the weather is good so far, but the forecast for tomorrow calls for clouds, and then we'll have three snow days in a row. I doubt there will be much visibility once it starts falling, but depending on how high the clouds will be, it might be fun to ski around the peaks.

Will you rent powder skis??

[tarponhead]

We argue a LOT among ourselves, it's just hard to make people get down to the car in time in the mornings! "This is a vacation" - they moan. Yeah right!

You should do what Indiggio does and just drive away [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

[eaf]

20 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Will you rent powder skis??

It's funny that you ask... Let me give you a perspective of what people are on here...

About 2% or less is the share of snowboarders.

I've seen only one guy who was on 184 skis, everybody else is on 175 or shorter.

I'd say that the majority of skis have width in the 70s. Plenty of folks on slaloms in the 60s.

The percentage of people on skis that are wider than lower 80s is even less than the percentage of snowboarders. Yeah, sometimes you run into someone on clearly powder skis, but that someone would be an exception to the rule and he looks like a lost puppy. It hasn't snowed for a week.

Brandwise 50% of people are on various flavours of Atomic. Handmade in Austria clearly dominates the market.

Then come Heads, but not Monsters, rather Supershapes, Rebels, things like that.

Some Fischers, mostly RC4, but older models. I've seen only one recent Curv.

Volkl is represented by Racetiger. I've seen one pair of Kendos and zero RTMs.

Stocklis are there, but I haven't seen Lasers.

Kastles can be found, but are rare. Also they're mostly LXs, I've seen only one pair of MX on the slopes, and I've been really looking.

Nordica is rare too. Mostly NRGY. Nobody has heard of Enforcers or Navigators.